You are listening to the Stop Binge Eating Podcast with Kirsten Sarfdy, episode number 223.

Welcome to the Stop Binge Eating Podcast. It's time for you to end your food obsession and begin

feeling confident and in control around food. You are absolutely capable of eliminating

binge eating from your life. And I'm going to show you how by giving you simple tools and insights that you can apply in your own life. I'm your host, Kirst and Sarty. Now let's get

to it. Hi, today I'm talking with you about counting allowed urges. People love having something

to count to help them determine if they're making progress

or not. And the go-to for people who binge eat is usually counting binge-free days.

They'll not binge for a day or for a week or for a month or more and make that mean that

they're doing well and are making progress. But using binge-free days isn't the only way to

show yourself that you're making progress. And for some people, using only that as a determinant

can backfire if they do end up binging. I've seen so many people get so down on themselves

for breaking their streak and then they start questioning themselves and think they're back

at square one or maybe they weren't doing as well as they thought or maybe their binge-free

streak was a fluke or that they'll never get past the amount of days, but they just reached.

It doesn't happen for everyone. Some people see it as a mistake to learn from, as an indicator

that they still have something to work on more,

or as a signal that they need to pay closer attention to themselves.

Binging after X amount of days is just a circumstance.

It's something that happened.

And you get to decide how you think about it and what you make that mean about you,

your progress, and your capabilities.

So I only recommend you focus on counting binge-free days if you commit to not making it mean

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