Do You Binge Eat? Habits In Your Brain Are Likely To Blame (Outweigh)

OUTWEIGH: Did you know snapping a rubber band on your wrist can help stop a negative pattern in the brain? Did you know you can create more self-acceptance by consistently saying 3 things in the mirror that you like about yourself? Did you know creating new habits in the brain might be more beneficial to your recovery than working through emotions?
 
Amy is answering these questions with her expert guest, Sheri Rowney, certified LENS (neurofeedback) practitioner & owner of Harmonized Brain Center. 
 
‘Brain Over Binge’ (by Katheryn Hansen) is a book that was instrumental in Amy’s recovery from a very grueling binge, restrict, purge cycle. Amy & Sheri also talk about this quote from the book:
 
“I never want to discourage anyone from resolving issues in their lives, but I do want binge eaters to avoid working endlessly on other problems and emotions without ever addressing the habit in the brain.” - Brain over Binge 2nd Edition, pg. 243
 
To learn more about Sheri and her work click the link below:
https://harmonizedbraincenterstn.com/about/ 
 

Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy

To contact Amy about Outweigh: [e-mail]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out out way everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me
it's beautiful and then will always out way if you

(00:24):
feel it. With joy in the air, she's some love
to the boom there. Let's say good day and did
you and die out? Happy Saturday outweigh Amy here and
my expert guest today is Sherry Rownie and she is
the owner of Harmonized Brain Centers of Tennessee here in Nashville.

(00:45):
She's a lens therapist, which is a type of neuro feedback,
And you're working with people's brains all day long, all
day long, and a lot of disordered eating, our body image,
even a lot of it. It all is and you know,
major player in disordered thinking, disordered eating, body image thoughts, Well,

(01:07):
this is all coming from our brain. Correct. So yeah,
the brain is the problem. So it is not you,
It is your brain. So when I first started a
true recovery journey, I think there are other times I
thought I was in recovery, but I just was eating
quote unquote clean and obsessed about it, by the way,

(01:29):
like couldn't function if I didn't have control over ingredients.
But I didn't consider that needing disorder or disordered eating
because I didn't know about orthorexia. It wasn't talked about
a lot. Well. I was like, well, I know I'm
not interrexic and I used to be bullying, but I'm
not throwing up my food anymore. I've stopped that until
my mom died, and then the trauma came back and
I immediately started that behavior again. And then after that

(01:54):
I knew I got to get really serious about this.
I was not in a true recovery play, which, hey,
I could still relapse at any point, and if that happens,
I'll have compassion for myself and let's move forward next
right step, because that happens to a lot of people
with any type of could be alcohol, could be drugs,
could be food. So have compassion for yourself. But I

(02:15):
knew that I was hungry for healing and true recovery,
and I had done the different types of talk therapy
which are going have been very helpful for me. But
then I heard about a book called Brain over Binge,
which was not so much addressing the emotions or anything
that happened to you that might have caused you to
have a neating disorder, but more so that at a

(02:38):
young age, if you started dieting, you were restricting your
brain and then it went into survival mode. And this
mostly happens with kids that diet. If you're a fully
developed like our brain what what age or we went
our brain fully developed? Okay, I don't know if that
number had changed, but if you're a thirty year old
that starts dieting, at least according to when I was

(03:00):
eating this book, it's not going to affect you the
same as if you're thirteen and you start dieting. So
it's very different because you you maybe want to start
a different eating journey as an adult, and you may
not end up with a binge restrict situation. And in
my case, I was a complete beinge restrict, perch restrict,
bend purche. It was exhausting. So that's why I was

(03:23):
very interested in brain over bench. But she was like, Hey,
we're not going to address the emotions. We're gonna address
what's happening in your brain. And I was like, this
clicks for me, This all makes sense yes. I started
dieting at around thirteen, and I started restricting and then
my brain was like, what are you doing? I need food.
So then when I would eat, I would eat and

(03:43):
eat meat because my brain didn't trust me and I
didn't know when I was going to feed it again.
So then I would just start eating, and then the
guilt would said in and then I'd feel blaw and
then that's when the purging in a sense, what's the
author of this book. To Catherine Hansen, her purge was
working out, so exercise can be a form of perch
which I didn't have that knowledge either. I was like, well,

(04:05):
it's normal to go to the gym for two hours. No,
it's not. Well. Catherine sent out this email recently. I
still get her newsletters, and it said should I address emotions?
And then this is a quote from her book Brain
over Binge. I never want to discourage anyone from resolving
issues in their lives, but I do want binge eaters

(04:26):
to avoid working endlessly on other problems and emotions without
ever addressing the habit in the brain. And so for me,
I had to do a repetitive thing every time I
went to my pantry to potentially, you know binge even
because I knew I'm not hungry, but I would go
to the pantry and I'd literally look at the pantry
and I would walk away. I would go to my pantry,

(04:48):
I would walk away, and then I created that habit
of like, Okay, I'm not I'm only gonna go to
my pantry when I'm hungry, And so that was building
that new neural pathway. Do you work with people that
have had eating disorders or do you see how the
lens therapy could be something that's used in addition to
help fix those parts of the brains that like, I'll
just use me for example, because I don't speak other people,

(05:09):
but I feel like I messed up my brain when
I started dieting as a kid. Could Len's therapy help that, Yes,
because there's trauma involved, and what happens with lens therapy,
all we're doing is stimulating the brain waves to do
something different than what they're doing, and they have created
pathways that are not efficient and they're not doing what
you need them to do. So by stimulating them, they'll

(05:31):
move back to a more natural pattern and so it
calms down the central nervous system. So you're not feeling
so jumpy every time, like um, and you create those habits,
like you said, and it takes thirty days to create
a habit, but sixty days to break one. So the
first thirty days you were creating that new habit every
time that you walk to the pantry, and then you said, nope, turnaround,

(05:52):
walk back. But it took sixty days before you actually
didn't walk to the pantry anymore. I can tell you
right now, it would have been a minimum of sixty days.
So with lens, we can get the brain working more
efficiently so that you're more aware of those things and
you can make those choices a little bit faster. Whenever
I started doing these treatments, it was interesting to see

(06:15):
the awareness part. I started having different thoughts in my brain.
Try to follow me here because it feels weird to
talk about its inception thing. But I would be doing
something and actively doing it and engaged in that, but
then there would be this awareness, oh wow, look at you,
you're doing this right, But that was another part of

(06:36):
my brain thinking it while I'm doing it. But it
was cool because my brain was recognizing and then it
was this almost reward because it made me feel good.
It's its own reward, that's right. And I was fine
and be like, oh go you and my brain was
telling another part of my brain that it was proud
of itself. That's right. But that is your brain coming
back on board. And a lot of times will say

(06:56):
that lens is like defragging a computer. You just kind
of defragged pieces that don't need to be there anymore
so that things are running more efficiently and you can
make those better choices. So on my four Things episode,
you're on talking more in depth about Len's therapy and
what it is. But you mentioned a rubber band and
popping it if you have a negative thought in your brain.
But you said that you specifically suggest that to patients

(07:20):
with and eating disorder. Why is that because what it
does when you snap that rubber band, it sends a
little pain signal to the brain, and in that very
split second that that's happening, the brain goes, oh, I
have to shift over to the pain. And by the
time it's dealt with, because it only lasts for a
second when you feel that snap, but it's enough to

(07:41):
stop that train of thought that you were going to.
It's breaking that pattern, breaking that loop for you. Another
thing that we often tell people um with eating disorders
is to take a piece of ice and put it
right behind your ear, and again, that significant shift will
change the brain and and get you off whatever it
was that you were thinking. Game. Well, that's fascinating, easy

(08:03):
and it works. I have never heard of the ice
cube thing. I assume that could work for other things too.
It does. It's not just for eating disorders, but we
find a really big shift because it's something that you
can do right then and you're just retraining the brain. Nope,
not a good idea, shift, Nope, not a good idea.
You might have a little bit of a red on
the inside of your risk for a little bit, but
you'll figure it out. Yeah, I mean it's not anything,

(08:26):
but it makes me think of dogs. That's right. The
shock collars are the trained the training callers a certain way,
so at least you're not shocking. You're now we're not
shocking anything, and you're in control of it, so no
one's going to hurt you. But it's just a reminder
to your brain. It's just sending that signal to your brain. Nope,
not a good good thing. It's just positive behavior. I've

(08:47):
gonna get a rubber band, not for thankfully, where I am,
I won't need it for that, but I want to
put it or for any food or body image issues,
but I want to put it on, and just for
negative thinking stink and thinking stink and thinking, which we
we talked about on Thursday as well. But I've been
thinking about that and how I want to really get

(09:10):
rid of that. It's not that I want to ignore
anything negative that happens in my life. Definitely want to
acknowledge that, but I want to have more positive thoughts.
It's more those negative looping which body image thoughts about ourselves.
We can speak so terribly to ourselves inside of our head,
and we can look in the mirror, or what are
your thoughts around? You know, if you say something and

(09:32):
you mess up, like I messed up at work today
and I immediately felt so stupid. I was like, why
did I say that word this way? I said, I
was talking about telepathy, but I said telepathy and Bobby said,
do you want to try that again? This is on
the Bobby Bone Show. And I was like, oh, telepathy.

(09:52):
He goes, that's it, and I said, what did I say?
And he's like telepathy, and I was like, oh, And
my instant reaction was I'm so stupid. And I used
to just leave it at that, but now that I'm
aware that I'm doing that. Actually, when we got off
air and went to break I took my headphones out
and even out loud, I said, Okay, I'm going to

(10:13):
forgive myself for saying that word wrong and we're gonna
move on. There you go, good job. That's exactly. So
that is my encouragement to you. If you have a
negative thought about yourself or your body, don't get mad
at yourself for having it. Say hey, I forgive myself
for having that thought, and now I'm going to move
on and I'm going to replace it with something good

(10:35):
because you changed it. You figured out the word, but
that might take it might take a while doing it,
but you just keep doing it over and it's And so,
do you have any suggestion for people if they are
looking in the mirror, like things that we can say
to our brain or anything that will encourage it, Because
this is so true. Our brain is paying attention to
every single thing that we're doing and saying to ourselves.

(10:57):
And so Mel Robbins says to high five yourself in
the ror, and that there's scientific research behind that is
going to help you throughout the day. That's simple act,
and I don't always remember to do it every morning,
but it's part of my routine when I get it in,
and if it's mid afternoon, I'm like, oh shoot, I
forgot to high five myself this morning. Then I'll high
five myself in the afternoon. What things would you have

(11:20):
us say to ourselves or why is something like that
beneficial for our brains? Because again, we're building patterns, were
building new habits every time you do that. So I
say three things that you can find good about yourself.
Look in the mirror and say, here's three things that
are good about me. My skin looks good today, or
hey look at that hair day, or my eyes look different,

(11:42):
whatever it is. Find something, because of course there's a
million things that are good about you, but find three
and just stay on those, and we start creating a pattern.
Then the next day or the next week, or the
next month, at a fourth one in or at a
different one in, and all of a sudden, you start
are creating I'm okay, I'm okay, just the way I am.
I love that It made me think about how sometimes

(12:04):
I look down at my hands and like, my hands
are getting old, but then they look like my mom's hands.
Then they remind me of hers. We have the same pinky,
and my mom passed away in two thousand fourteen, and
so now when I look down, I really try hard
to just be thankful for these hands that remind me
of my mom's hands. That's beautiful. That's really changing that

(12:27):
that narrative, that narrative. So all we have to do
is change our narrative, and it's not all we have
to do. That's a really hard thing to do. Yeah,
So I don't mean that in a in a very
slight way, but there are wonderful things about you find three,
you can find three. Yeah, And I would say talk
therapy can get you very far with a lot of things.
But there's so much happening in your brain that helping

(12:51):
rewire it through something like Lenz therapy or a repetitive
action over and over and over, like, just make sure
you're intentional and proactive about taking care of your brain,
parts of your brain that are subconscious. You don't even
realize all the things that are happening because talk therapy
you're like, Okay, well this is a memory I can
pull up, and I think it's because of this and this,
and that's great, But our brain is so complex. And

(13:15):
what I realized too through brain over binge and my
recovery after that was like, wow, my brain was just
taking care of me, is doing the best that it could,
and just doing the best it could just to keep
you going. And when you get into a fight, flight, freeze,
survival type situation, your brain is like, okay, buckle up,

(13:35):
I gotta take care of you. And so a lot
of different behaviors can simply be that that survival mode.
Then if you can start to take care of that
part of you and relax it, that's how I feel
like it feels. It's like I picture my brain being
like a thank you. I was exhausted from that. Well,
you're just letting it know that the fight or flight

(13:56):
doesn't need to be there anymore. We were designed to
how a fight or flight to get us out of danger.
But when we stay in a constant state, then the
brain doesn't know the difference between an everyday day or
something is really wrong. And that's that's no way to live.
It's using way too much energy for your brain. Well, Sherry,

(14:16):
thank you for coming on outweigh And then if people
want to hear more about lens therapy and what that
is all about, it's on Thursday's Four Things episode. And
if people want to find you, they can hit up
your website, which is Harmonized Brain Centers TN dot com
for Tennessee. Because your brother he has Harmonized Brain Centers
dot com because he's got a center and yeah, Colorado.

(14:39):
So I love that you and your brother have found
this and obviously it's been such a powerful tool for
your family that you both got in the business because
it's not what you either one of you originally did Nope,
So I highly encourage you to check out wherever you are,
you can google if there's a lens therapy practitioner near you,
which you can go ahead and say it here because
I know you said it on four Things, But what's

(15:00):
that website so people can make sure they're going to
someone that's certified or it's Oaks Labs o c h
S Labs dot com. And then there's a tab for
resources and they'll have a finder provider. And then if
you're here in Nashville, Harmonized brain Center is what it's called,
and I gave you the website, but the Instagram handle
is harmonized underscore Brain, underscore Centers, underscore t N. It's

(15:25):
a mouthful, but I mean it breaks it up. You
can see exactly what it is. If that was all
one long handle, it'd be like what, my brain can't
figure that out. So thank you, Sherry, Bye bye