Restriction doesn't only mean "eating less." It can also mean living with food rules in your head, shutting down emotions you don't know how to hold, or staying stuck in a stress state without relief. Any of those experiences can create a scarcity of safety, and scarcity is one of the biggest drivers of binge eating and overeating.

This episode breaks down four types of restriction:

• Physical restriction: not eating enough for your body (including subtle versions like portion control, cutting out food groups, or unintentionally under-eating during the day)
• Mental restriction: the constant "I shouldn't," guilt, and food rules—even when you're eating plenty
• Emotional restriction: using food to shut down feelings before they move through
• Nervous system restriction: when your stress cycle stays open and food becomes a safety cue or a way to come back down

If you've ever felt confused because you eat "normally" (or a lot) and still binge, this will help you understand what's actually driving the pattern and where to start.

RESOURCES:

Binge Eating to Intuitive Eating Self-Study Course

Read my Substack essay

Read my short-form content on Instagram

Ever feel bad about your body and go straight to food?

That moment feels confusing, self-defeating, and impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't lived it. This episode is about that moment — why it happens, what's actually driving it, and why the reaction makes far more sense than you've been told.

Inside this conversation, we look at the psychological and nervous-system dynamics that turn body image distress into powerful eating urges, and why the more you care about your body, the more intense this loop can become.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• why body image distress creates all-or-nothing thinking and urgency
• how mood-congruent cognition makes your thoughts spiral to match the mood
• why the nervous system prioritizes escaping immediate discomfort, even when it creates more later
• how binge urges can come from both collapse/soothing and mobilized, high-energy stress
• why "self-punishment" is often about control, predictability, and making pain make sense
• how the rebel/protector part responds to the invisible labor of body-image panic
• why your brain anticipates restriction before you ever change a single behavior
• and how slowing down becomes the doorway back to choice

This conversation connects binge eating, body image, trauma, nervous system regulation, and scarcity psychology — giving language to a pattern that a lot of people live inside, but rarely understand.

Work with me
If you want support applying these ideas, I offer 1:1 coaching for binge eating recovery, intuitive eating, and body image healing. Apply here!

For years I have talked about binge eating, compulsive eating, and the binge & restrict cycle — and how chaotic and dysregulated those patterns feel in the body. But what if restriction itself is also a form of nervous system dysregulation?

In this episode, I break down how food restriction shows up inside the four trauma responses — fight, flight, freeze, and fawn — using polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, and real lived experience to give it context.

I also announce that my SENSR course is open for enrollment: all of the details are right here!

In this episode, you'll learn:

• why restriction can be an expression of anger and control (fight)
• how chronic dieting becomes emotional avoidance and hyper-vigilance (flight)
• why restriction is often about belonging, approval, and social safety (fawn)
• how food restriction becomes self-punishment, penance, and disappearing after trauma (freeze)
• how the body uses restriction to regulate overwhelm, threat, and emotional overload
• why both binge eating and restriction are attempts at safety, not failures of character
• how diet culture, weight stigma, and cultural power feed these nervous system loops
• and why true healing requires learning how to complete stress cycles and build regulation without food control

This conversation connects ED recovery, intuitive eating, body image, trauma, somatic therapy, and nervous system education — showing how our relationship with food is inseparable from how our body experiences safety, threat, and connection.

If you struggle with restriction or periods of restriction, this episode offers a radically different lens — your nervous system is trying to protect you.

If you want support applying these ideas to your actual life (not just your notes app), I offer 1:1 coaching for binge eating recovery, intuitive eating, and body image healing. Apply here!

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