Most people who struggle with binge eating do not look like they are struggling. From the outside, they are the capable ones, the driven ones, the people who seem to have it all figured out. They are running meetings, maintaining relationships, checking every box a successful life is supposed to require. And behind closed doors, in their cars, in their kitchens late at night, they are doing something they believe no one would understand, let alone forgive.
Jane Pilger knows this particular split very well. For more than 25 years, the Albuquerque-based coach and host of the Binge Eating Breakthrough Podcast moved through her career as a CPA, then as president of a commercial real estate association, then as the founder of a women’s industry network, all while carrying what she describes as a profound and exhausting secret. She was binge eating. And she was absolutely certain that if anyone found out, the version of herself she had so carefully constructed would collapse.
Her story is not just a recovery narrative. It is an examination of why so many people with disordered eating stay stuck for so long, what role shame and secrecy play in keeping the cycle going, and what actually has to shift before real change becomes possible. If you have ever found yourself doing something in private that does not line up with who you believe yourself to be, this conversation is for you.
What Binge Eating Actually Is and Is Not
Pilger is careful to define her terms. Not because she wants to lean on clinical language, but because she has found that a lot of people dismiss their own experiences without a clearer picture of what binge eating actually involves.
“There are some general characteristics,” she said. “Eating large quantities of food, more than would typically be eaten at any particular point in time. Eating sometimes unusual quantities of food, the combinations, foods you wouldn’t normally eat, also eating them in a short period of time. And there’s often a sense of not being able to control yourself. It’s like once you start, you cannot stop.”
The final element, she said, is the one that most clearly separates binge eating from ordinary overeating: the shame that follows.
“There’s a profound sense of shame afterwards,” Pilger said. “Shame in kind of feeling broken, feeling like a failure.”
Shame is not the same thing as guilt over the last handful of chips. It is heavier, more isolating, and it feeds directly into the secrecy that tends to define the experience. Pilger references researcher Brene Brown’s observation that shame thrives in the darkness, an idea she said she returned to again and again in her own journey. The more hidden the behavior, the more power the shame holds.
What is The Cost of Appearing Perfect
Pilger’s binge eating began her first semester of college, when she found herself sitting on a dorm room floor surrounded by the empty wrappers of a care package full of candy bars. What she remembers most is not the eating itself but the wave of alarm that followed and the immediate decision to make sure no one ever knew.
That impulse toward secrecy, she said, was not separate from her public identity. It was the other side of it.
When asked what she imagined people saw when they looked at her life, she did not hesitate. “I would guess that they would perceive, oh, look at her. She’s smart, she’s capable,” she said. “Kind of checking all of the boxes of here are the things that equate a successful life.”
The problem was that maintaining that perception left no room for anything else. “I was not giving myself permission to be human,” Pilger said. “It was kind of like this requirement to be perfect is what I was living under. Humans don’t have all the answers. We are filled with all kinds of emotions and uncertainty and fears and doubts. But I didn’t talk about them. I didn’t know how to feel them in my body.”
That pressure needed somewhere to go. Food became the outlet. Not because Pilger was weak or broken, but because she had no other tools for managing the feelings she had been trained, implicitly and explicitly, never to show.
There is something worth pausing on here, because the cultural messaging around emotional eating tends to be dismissive. We are told we should not use food to soothe. But as Pilger points out, soothing with food is deeply human. We are comforted with food as infants. It is woven through nearly every cultural ritual. The problem is not that someone reaches for comfort in the kitchen. The problem, Pilger said, is what happens next: the self-judgment that kicks in, the declaration that tomorrow will be different, the all-or-nothing thinking that swings the pendulum from one extreme to the other.
“There’s a lot of black and white, all or nothing thinking that can really lead to the extremes,” she said. “I’ve already failed. I’m going to be perfect tomorrow. So I might as well eat all the food today.”
The Lengths People Will Go To in Order to Keep a Secret
Amy Stone asked Pilger a question that cuts to something rarely discussed in conversations about disordered eating: Was it really a secret?
Pilger’s answer was nuanced. She had worked hard to keep it that way. She replaced food she had eaten from the pantry, buying new items and consuming just enough to make the levels look undisturbed. She ate in her car and disposed of wrappers at gas stations so no evidence would make it home. She attributed stomachaches to the digestive issues she had experienced even before the binge eating began.
And still, she suspects her husband knew more than she realized.
“My mood would change,” she said. “You can’t go from kind of being connected to then being more in a shame and judgment spiral and not have that energy kind of be known.”
She also notes that in her coaching work, she regularly speaks with people who are the first to tell her about their binge eating, ahead of their spouses, their families, their closest friends. The secrecy is not an accident. It is a feature of the disorder. “You really kind of end up making your life very small through it all,” Pilger said, “to try and keep the secret.”
The emotional labor required to maintain that secrecy over years or decades is enormous, and it rarely gets counted in conversations about why people do not simply “stop.”
Why Behavior Change Alone Does Not Always Work
It was not a single turning point that finally moved Pilger toward recovery. It was a gradual accumulation of steps, some helpful and some that, without her realizing it, kept her stuck. The restriction that followed each binge, the attempt to compensate by eating nothing the next day, were not strategies for healing. They were continuations of the same cycle.
What ultimately made the difference, she said, was understanding the reason behind the behavior, not just the behavior itself.
Pilger uses a metaphor she returns to often: the dashboard light. “Our food behavior,” she said, “is telling us there’s something going on under the hood. We need to get under the hood to see what’s making that light come on in the first place.”
This shift in framing, from “how do I stop this behavior” to “what is this behavior trying to tell me,” became the foundation of her coaching practice. And it was reinforced by an experience she did not anticipate. When she was in the process of building her website and preparing to go public with her story for the first time, her binge eating returned.
“I didn’t really know anything about the nervous system at the time,” she said. “But to my nervous system, it was a big deal.”
What she came to understand was that behaviors like binge eating often function as protective mechanisms. The nervous system, perceiving a threat, reaches for what has historically provided some form of regulation, even if that regulation comes at a cost. “That behavior is a protective mechanism,” Pilger said. “It’s trying to keep you safe.”
This is the piece, she argues, that most programs, habit frameworks, and even some therapy approaches miss. You can change what is on the surface without touching what is underneath. And when that happens, the behavior tends to find its way back.
Why Choose to Go Public
After decades of secrecy, Pilger made the decision not just to heal but to do it out loud. She launched a podcast, a YouTube channel, and a coaching practice, all built around the thing she had spent the better part of her adult life hiding.
She describes the decision as rooted in impact. She had been part of a larger group where she shared her story in a smaller, safer context, and the response from people who heard her was consistent: they felt less alone. They had language for something they had been carrying in silence.
“If this reaches one person,” she said, “then that’s amazing. All I really want to do is make a difference in the life of somebody who feels broken, feels alone in their struggle.”
That impulse is at the heart of why stories like Pilger’s matter beyond the individual. Shame, she and Brene Brown both argue, loses its grip when it is brought into the light. Not because disclosure is easy or because vulnerability is always safe, but because isolation is one of the primary conditions under which both shame and disordered eating grow.
If there is a thread running through Pilger’s story from the candy bars on the dorm room floor to the YouTube channel she built after the nervous system flare-up, it is this: the secret was always the problem as much as the eating itself. Understanding why the behavior existed, and giving it somewhere to go besides the dark, was what finally made a different life possible.
This article was inspired by an interview with Jane Pilger and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen and or https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Binge Eating: Interview Transcript Jane Pilger with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | April 2026
Amy Stone [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. Jane Pilger, are you ready for a fun chat today?
Jane Pilger [00:00:11]:
I am.
Amy Stone [00:00:12]:
Oh, good. All right, share with us what part of the world you call home.
Jane Pilger [00:00:18]:
I call Albuquerque, New Mexico, home.
Amy Stone [00:00:21]:
Oh, I have that on my mind because I just watched Pluribus.
Jane Pilger [00:00:27]:
Pluribus. We just started watching that last night. We watched the very first episode.
Amy Stone [00:00:31]:
There must be a connection with the production team to Albuquerque, because he also is, I think, the Breaking Bad guy.
Jane Pilger [00:00:36]:
Right? Yeah, exactly. Must be. I haven’t looked into it yet, but I was thinking the same thing as I was watching, and the lead character, you know, she’s also in Better Call Saul.
Amy Stone [00:00:46]:
Yes, yes, absolutely. Okay. Share with us something that you like or love about the town you call home. Albuquerque. I’m fascinated because I have only a mass media TV impression of the town.
Jane Pilger [00:00:58]:
So many things I love about Albuquerque. But I will. I will pick the Sandia Mountains. So sandia means watermelon in Spanish. And what’s really unique about the Sandia Mountains is that when the sun. The. The mountains are on the east side of town. And so when the sun sets in the west, it. It creates this beautiful color on the mountains, and they turn pink. And because of the trees and the rocks and everything else on the mountains, it ends up looking like the inside of a watermelon. So that is.
Amy Stone [00:01:30]:
Wow.
Jane Pilger [00:01:31]:
Called the Sandia Mountains. And the home that we live in now, we have just a beautiful view of the Sandias. We get to watch them turn pink in the evenings. And it’s one of the many things I love about Albuquerque that is.
Amy Stone [00:01:47]:
That. That sounds spectacular. That really sounds spectacular. I have actually been through Albuquerque very briefly because I dragged my family. They loved it. It was great. But the summer of lockdown, I had kids that were in school. I wasn’t gonna make them suffer through virtual camp because they had just done virtual school. So instead, I put them in the car, and we did, like, a whole huge thing. But we were only there for one day, and it was downtown, and so I didn’t see very much. I definitely didn’t get a chance to see the sun setting on the mountains, because that would have been amazing. And I would remember. All right, off topic. I’m already off topic. Today we’re gonna talk about public perceptions, keeping secrets, and what maybe could have been called or could be called a disordered eating pattern. Are you ready with me about that today?
Jane Pilger [00:02:33]:
Absolutely. Let’s go.
Amy Stone [00:02:35]:
Let’s do it. You shared in your pitch that from the outside, people looking in your life Looked like you had it all together. But behind what you call this polished perception, you were hiding that you were binge eating. So my first question to start this conversation is, could you share with me in the audience what you mean when you say binge eating so that we’re all on the same page?
Jane Pilger [00:03:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. So when I talk about binge eating, I really don’t get into. I could, but I don’t get into the. The DSM and the diagnostic manual and all of the kind of specific, what is binge eating? But to really clarify, just for anybody who is wondering, what. What does that mean? There are some general characteristics to kind of describe binge eating in. In the way that I experienced it. And it’s eating large quantities of food, more than would typically be eaten at any particular point of time. It’s also eating sometimes unusual quantities of food, either the. The types, the combinations, foods you wouldn’t normally eat, also eating them in a short period of time. And there’s often a sense of not being able to control yourself. It’s like once you start, you. You cannot stop. It’s this feeling like, I have to. It’s like this compulsion to keep eating. I can’t stop. And then the last kind of hallmark is a profound sense of shame afterwards. So shame in kind of feeling broken, feeling like a failure, just a. A real sense of shame afterwards.
Amy Stone [00:04:17]:
So. And that sounds like that would be the sense of shame. Sounds like it might be one of the things that is the difference between snacking on, like, chips and salsa and like, you know, oh, I’m gonna eat one more chip. And because they’re salty and it’s hard, you know, they’re delicious. And what we would say then is binge eating. Because, you know, if I overdo it a little bit on chips and salsa, I’m not maybe thrilled with myself, but I’m not wrecked with shame.
Jane Pilger [00:04:48]:
Yes, that’s exactly right. So there’s this sense of, I’m broken, there is something wrong with me in order for me to show up with food in this same way. And so that sense of shame, that sense of feeling broken, it’s very different from, like, wow, like, what happened to all the chips? I just ate all the chips, or that wasn’t a good idea, or now I have a stomachache. It’s. It’s so much. It’s heavier. It’s a real. It’s. It’s heavy, but it’s also isolating the. The shame. It’s like, I remember when I first started learning about shame was you know Brene Brown, right. It’s how so many of us learned about shame. But I remember first reading her books and she’s so. I mean, she. I totally agree with everything she says about shame, but one of the things that she says that’s so. Just really sticks with me is that shame thrives in the darkness. Yeah. And it grows there. And it wants to hide. It wants to be in the darkness. And especially around food. I mean, really, any time any of us show up with a behavior that we wouldn’t want other people to know that we were doing this, that’s where the shame comes in. And so with that shame, it’s like, I have to keep this a secret. Nobody can know that I’m doing this. These things with food behind closed doors, especially when other people only know me as this, what I call like a virtuous eater or somebody who eats really healthily and only eats these other things. Like they would just be shocked to know the way that I was like the amounts, the quantities, the types of food that I was eating behind closed doors.
Amy Stone [00:06:32]:
So I love that you are talking about it. It is, food is. It can be a trip tricky topic for people because unlike some other habits where you can clearly classify it into a hey, there’s no. This is never healthy. Right. Like, this is never a good thing. People have to eat. We do have to eat. And so it makes it a difficult thing. And in 2026, they will talk about some other things. But one of the things that’s really interesting when I talk to people and this overlaps different categories in food, a lot of people are in a spot. There’s a lot of information, there’s a lot of access to information. There’s still access to professionals. But people do a lot of first round self diagnosing in a variety of things. I think we’re more prone to doing it when they’re things we’re embarrassed about as humans. And then there’s a. There is this rebound thing where people like, well, don’t diagnose yourself. On TikTok, which I first heard about with adult ADHD, talking to people who got that and they got pushback. They were like, well, you shouldn’t diagnose based on that. And the people I was talking to, they were like, sure. But also it was really helpful for me to find people who were sharing their experiences. And so I think there’s a balance. I think there’s a balance.
Jane Pilger [00:07:48]:
One thing that has been really powerful me, for me is I have a podcast. It’s called the Binge Eating Breakthrough Podcast. And I hear from a lot of people I know you know that it’s like, when you actually hear from a listener who is listening to your podcast and they tell you something or they give you feedback, it’s like, oh, it’s.
Amy Stone [00:08:04]:
So great to hear so much of a fry. It’s like you’ve won the lottery, because otherwise, you’re just existing in your, like, creator bubble that you’re like, is anybody out there? Yeah.
Jane Pilger [00:08:15]:
Yes, exactly. But one of the very common things that I hear a lot is, wow, you are helping me understand food in a different way. Like, and the common theme, I would say, is, I have been struggling with this for my entire life, and you are saying things on the podcast that I’ve never heard before. You are helping me make sense for the first time. I have hope. I’m starting to see what I’m doing in a different lens. And I would say that is the biggest kind of piece or, like, overarching piece of the work that I do is really helping people understand why they do the things that they do. For the most part, it’s food. But, I mean, it’s really any pattern if you’re showing up in a way that doesn’t line up with who you really want to be in this world and who you just know is really the truth of who you are helping you understand why that is. Because there’s always a really good reason. And the way that I like to talk about it is our food behavior. So if food isn’t a thing for you, if you’re listening and you’re like, yeah, food’s not my thing, but here’s this one thing that I do that I wouldn’t want anybody else to know. Insert that thing as I’m talking about this. So that thing that you do that you wouldn’t want other people to know, that doesn’t really line up with who you know you really are. Like, at your core, I consider that a light on the dashboard. So it’s telling us there’s something going on under the hood. We need to get under the hood to see what’s making that light come on in the first place. And what so many people do is they look at the behavior first and they say, okay, let’s change the behavior. Or they say, binge eating is. It’s a habit. So we have to just change the habit and look at what you’re eating, when you’re eating, how much you’re eating. And we’re kind of just looking at the behavior. But if we don’t look at what’s under the hood and what’s causing the lights to come on in the first place, no amount of behavior change is going to address what’s really making us show up in this way with whatever our. Our pattern is.
Amy Stone [00:10:36]:
Yeah, and there’s a ton of. There’s a ton of books. There’s a ton of research on this topic. And, you know, research is one of those things. It’s like statistics. It’s like you can probably find evidence to support anything at this point in time. But there is. I think it really has shifted in my lifetime to away from, you know, habit change is as simple as just white knuckling your way through to. We now understand that. And I don’t think we fully understand it as a. As a people, to be honest, be. But we’re beginning to understand that, you know, there’s a. There’s a lot going on for why people do things, but one of the things is people. There’s a reason why people do things, even if it doesn’t make sense to everybody around them. And especially the. Some of the most interesting research about it in the really destructive things. There’s also a reason when people do things that don’t make sense, that are actually harmful to them. And so. And that changes that awareness, really, for me, changes the whole conversation. Like, it’s like, all right, you know, but it’s. I’m not. That’s not. That’s what you do. That’s not what I do. Anyway, back on topic. Let’s back up a little tiny bit. You describe that from the outside, people thought you had it all together. And I’d love for you to share with us what you know. And this is your perception. Right. And there’s all these different ways to look at what we’re doing, how we see ourselves, how we think other people see us. Tell us a little bit, though, about what that having it all together you think looked like for you before you went public with this?
Jane Pilger [00:12:03]:
I would say. I mean, perception. How. What I. How do I say this? My. I’m getting tongue tied.
Amy Stone [00:12:13]:
I asked you a good question. I put you on a good question.
Jane Pilger [00:12:15]:
I’m trying to, like, formulate the answer in my head. One thing that was important to me, and I would. I mean, I wouldn’t. I would be lying if I said it’s not still important to me to an extent, but is what do other people think about me? What are they seeing? What are they perceiving? I would guess that they would perceive, oh, look at her. She’s smart, she’s capable. She. I don’t know, just kind of one of those, you know, those people who just kind of like, she has friends, she has it together. She, she’s. If she, whatever she goes after, if she goes after this or she does well in school or she gets a job right away or, you know, she has a great relationship, like, kind of checking all of the boxes of here are the things that, you know, equate a successful life at any age, really. I could kind of see, like, through. Through the years. And I initially, I wouldn’t let anybody see the not so successful part, right? The. Any parts that were more human, more real, more vulnerable. I. It felt very threatening for me to appear to be anything other than put together, in a good mood, smart, capable, successful, driven. Like, that’s what I wanted people to see exclusively. And I really, when I really look back on it, we were actually talking about this before the podcast, but one of my favorite sentences now is permission to be human. And if I look back, I was not giving myself permission to be human. It was kind of like this requirement to be perfect is what I was living under is like we have to be. Appear to be perfect and to have it figured out and to have all of the answers. And that’s really. I mean, it’s not human. Humans don’t have all the answers. We don’t have it figured out. We are filled with all kinds of emotions and uncertainty and fears and doubts. But I wouldn’t ever. I didn’t talk about them. I didn’t know how to feel them in my body. I didn’t want anybody to see that I had them. And so that is for sure one of the many reasons that really led to the binge eating for me. But. But just trying to be perfect and kind of have everything together and not having a place to go for all of the stuff inside, whether it was the overwhelm or the uncertainty or the fear and the doubt, those types of things. I didn’t have an outlet for them. And so food kind of became a way to navigate and to try to kind of soothe myself through those things, because I didn’t have any other resources to do that.
Amy Stone [00:15:04]:
And people will. I’m not a nutritionist, and I’m not qualified to say what I’m about to say. I’m saying it anyway. People sometimes will put that using food to soothe in a. You’re not supposed to do that kind of thing. But I will say that it’s. It Seems to me as someone who’s just a human being, who raised small human beings, it’s like a human thing. It’s like. It’s a way we connect. It’s a part of our culture. You know, young children, we soothe them with food. And so it’s. There’s some grace that goes in there. In the. In my book, it’s like. It’s like, yeah, you may want to modify this, but don’t be too hard on yourself that you develop this as a coping tool, because that’s exactly right.
Jane Pilger [00:15:46]:
And what happens so much is like, you may start eating because you are feeling some sort of emotions. And then comes the. I shouldn’t be doing this. This is bad. This is wrong. I should be, you know, doing something else. And so then we make ourselves wrong for doing a very human, very natural thing. And it’s in the. Making ourselves wrong. And, well, now I’m a failure. I’ve already failed. I’ve already screwed up. I’m going to be perfect tomorrow. So I might as well eat all the food today because I’m not going to eat any of these foods again starting tomorrow. So there’s so much, especially with binge eating, there’s a lot of black and white, all or nothing thinking that can really lead to the extremes. And so the extremes happen in so many places, but they happen with the consumption, too. It’s like, well, I’ve eaten all this food now tomorrow I’m going to eat nothing to kind of try to essentially make up for it. And. And if you think about the pendulum, when we’re on an extreme, we’re just going to keep swinging from one extreme to the other.
Amy Stone [00:16:49]:
Yes, that’s.
Jane Pilger [00:16:50]:
I.
Amy Stone [00:16:51]:
Well, I say yes because I understand what you’re saying, not because I am the expert. So let’s talk about this. You do not have to share anything with me that seems too private or too personal, but would you be willing to share with us how long you think you are in this cycle of binge eating in your life?
Jane Pilger [00:17:07]:
You know, I. I would say it was probably over 25 years. My very first binge was my first semester in college. It was. I was in my dorm room. I had a. I had a. I lived by myself in a single. In a single dorm room. And that fall, I was sent a care package, and it was filled with a bunch of little miniature candy bars. And I don’t remember the binge itself, but I remember sitting on the floor with that open cardboard box sitting in front of me and just empty wrappers. Strewn all over the floor, and I had eaten entire box. And I remember kind of looking around and thinking, oh, my goodness, what have I done? And that was really the start of what I consider my binge eating disorder and the drive to, number one, never do it again. And number two, in the beginning, that nobody could know what I had done. And for a long time, I was really. It was really trying to keep it secret. I eventually found an eating disorder specialist and went to see her, and it took her quite some time to convince me to tell my friends, to tell my parents, to tell my husband I was married. I met the man who is now my husband and fell in love. We had this great courtship. And during the time that we were together, I mean, I was in love, I was happy. The binging was very minimal. And very shortly after we got married, it came back. And so I can remember having the conversation with him, telling him what I was doing. He had no idea. Talk about Shane. I so distinctly remember we were in our bedroom. I was on my back on the bed, and I had my arm over my eyes with the inside of my elbow covering my eyes. I could not look at him when I told. When I was telling him what was happening and what I was struggling with. And I was so convinced that he wouldn’t love me if he knew what I was doing because I didn’t love myself. I had so much shame, I had so much judgment that I was convinced that anybody else would have that same amount of disgust and judgment for me. And he met me with such love and with such compassion. He truly is, I think, the first example of true, unconditional love that I’ve. I ever experienced in my life.
Amy Stone [00:19:39]:
It’s pretty lucky.
Jane Pilger [00:19:41]:
So lucky. So pretty. I really don’t know where I would be on this journey without him. I mean, I have been very. One thing about me is I am. I am. I am driven, for sure. I’m also resilient. And so was like, I’m going to figure this out. And at some point, I remember saying, if I ever figure this. This out, I’m going to help other people figure it out. I’m going to help them also so that they don’t have to experience the same type of pain and shame and loneliness and kind of this isolation. It’s so. There’s so much isolation in it because we want to hide. We don’t want anybody to see that we’ve done it. And if we’ve been in a pattern for a long time, there may be weight gain that then has you like, no, I can’t go anywhere. I don’t want anybody to see that I’ve gained weight or I just don’t want to be around other people. I don’t want to be around food. You really kind of end up making your life very small through it all. To try and keep the secret. What’s that?
Amy Stone [00:20:45]:
To try and keep the secret.
Jane Pilger [00:20:46]:
Absolutely. That’s right. That’s right.
Amy Stone [00:20:48]:
So I have a question about the secrecy because. And this is. This is just a conversation topic. I in no way, shape or form want this to feel like it’s like an actual, you know, evaluation or judgment on. On anything that you did. But through my life, my. My life experience, I definitely have had a variety of friends who were in situations, whether it was binge eating, binge eating, eating disorders, or other things where they. Or drinking or whatever, other isms. Right. Where I think that they thought it was more secret than it was to some of us. And, and so I wanted to ask you. So I. You told the story about your husband, and that actually makes sense because he wasn’ seeing it because you. It was at a point where you weren’t really doing it. But in the history of this, from college to when you decided to work on it and you were able to make the change, was there really nobody else who knew that this was going on or did. Were there times where people saw little inklings of it and you sort of had to bob and weave or make up a story or whatever?
Jane Pilger [00:21:51]:
Yeah, it’s such a good question. And it’s something my husband and I have talked about for sure is. I do believe that my husband knew a lot more than I realized. You know, especially we were. Even if he wasn’t seeing the actual eating, because I wasn’t eating while he was there, I wasn’t eating in the house, but I would come home and just be like, oh, I’m like, I don’t feel well. Now I will say I have a history of. Even before the binging, I have a history of digestive and stomach issues. And so it was just. It became a, I don’t feel good. My stomach hurts. I’m not going to eat because my stomach hurts. And so it really. My stomach did hurt. But so in the beginning, he really thought, oh, well, she’s just having more, you know, kind of digestive issues. But as it went on, he for sure could tell. And because my mood would change, I mean, you can’t go from kind of being connected to then being more in a shame and judgment spiral and not have that energy kind of be. Be known. So I do think, especially my husband, I do think he probably knew more. And certainly other people, there were definitely periods of time where my weight would increase. So, I mean, whether somebody knew I was binging or not, they would certainly notice, you know, kind of a difference in body size.
Amy Stone [00:23:16]:
Okay.
Jane Pilger [00:23:16]:
But. But I do think there is, for sure. It’s interesting to think about those things where we think we’re being more secretive than we actually are. The other thing that’s fascinating to me is I can’t tell you how many people that I talk to reach out to me. We have a conversation, and I’m often the very first person they’ve told. Yeah, whether. Including family, friends, spouse. It’s very. It is very common to have this issue in such a secret and private way. And I. I can remember even before my husband knew, like, I would eat, let’s say I. I often ate his cereal, like his granola, his cereal, his things from the pantry. And if I finished something, I would basically finish it all, go to the grocery store, replace it, eat a little bit more to kind of be more like, at the level of wherever it was before I started. And then I would go. And then, of course, I would buy other things, too. Lot of eating in the car, driving around, and then I would throw all of the wrappers away at a gas station or something like that so that the, you know, the evidence wouldn’t be. Wouldn’t. Wouldn’t exist.
Amy Stone [00:24:29]:
That is a huge amount of emotional labor to keep up the appearance of what you. What you were trying to do there. So at some point, you’ve got these two different lives going on. You’ve got a public polished Persona and a private, secret binge eating that when you move in with your husband, when you’ve got a house that, like, is, you know, relegated to, like, the car and, like, outside. So tell us a little bit about. So I’m. I’m curious about this. Tell us about how it happens that you decide that this. This needs to end and you need some help. How does that. How does that finally show up?
Jane Pilger [00:25:08]:
I would say it very much was. It was not like a one day, everything changed. It was from that very first binge, it was like, I, like, I need to take care of this. I need to fix this. And it really was a series of steps. Like, if I were to go back and kind of look at what were the steps? What are the things that I did, Some of them were so helpful, so beneficial. Talking to somebody, finding somebody who Understood, who knew what to do, who knew how to work with me, who at least just, I mean, literally understood. Because I, in, in my world, nobody could understand. I, I must have been the only one who was dealing with this. So finding somebody else that I could talk to who understood, incredibly helpful. There were other things that I was doing that unintentionally I was trying to stop, but unintentionally I was keeping myself in it, like, restricting my, like, what I ate the next day, trying to make up for it.
Amy Stone [00:26:06]:
Hunger is one of the most painful things that we can experience. It’s really hard to overcome hunger. I mean, not if you are in the middle of Sahara desert and there is no food, then, you know, but if you’re in the United States of America in 2025, 2026, food is everywhere. If you are hungry, that is, you know, well, and then.
Jane Pilger [00:26:29]:
And even just the relationship with hunger can be so complicated. I actually did a series on my podcast. It’s about a six or seven episode series all about hunger. Because it’s not just physical hunger, especially for somebody who has struggled with food for, in some cases, in many cases a lifetime. Yeah, it’s like there really is. Some people are afraid of getting hungry. Some people really kind of push hunger too far. Some people, you know, you hear just at so many places like, well, just eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re not hungry anymore, when you’re satisfied, and then you’ll be fine. And it’s like, well, if it were that easy, then, you know, we wouldn’t have all of these podcasts and all of these programs and all of these other things out there. So just the topic of hunger alone is way more complex than, you know, kind of the physical signals that tell you that your body needs some fuel right now.
Amy Stone [00:27:30]:
It’s not what we’re talking about today. But I think that one of the most interesting thing that’s come out with the GLP1s, the peptide medicines that are just everywhere and omnipresent in so many ways, is that it has pushed that topic to front and center. The idea of food noise and the reality that so many people have extremely strong willpower. I mean, really motivated people were, you know, it was life changing for them because it did change the hunger cues, which just put it into a spotlight that we didn’t really understand hunger and motivation beforehand. And I’m not the person who has the solutions. I’m sure there are millions of people out there researching it. That’s not me. All right, so You’ve got these two different lives going on. In your pitch, you mentioned in here that you changed careers as a part of this, like, recovery process. So share with us how this decision to change careers interacts with the. Your relationship with food in your. And the whole thing.
Jane Pilger [00:28:32]:
Well, I think it. I mean, it really does mirror. It really does mirror kind of what we’ve been talking about where on the outside, kind of the public perception. So originally out of college, I went in. I got an accounting degree. I became a certified public accountant. I went.
Amy Stone [00:28:49]:
I just have to say, like, you know, there’s like the pop culture, like, thing about, like, food and control. Right. I love this whole story. And then it comes out that we first studied was accounting, because accounting is the perfect job for people who like to line things up and organize them and make like the. Just the idea of, like, balancing a checkbook, it’s like, you know, type A, type B. Anyway, sorry I rudely interrupted you to make that conclusion, but I. I think that it’s like, if you looked up a definition of, like, what would be expected, that might be it.
Jane Pilger [00:29:22]:
Absolutely. You can bet that even before anything else existed, I had spreadsheets, counting calories and, you know, color coded things and all of the things. Absolutely. So I was a cpa, went into commercial real estate. I became the president of our commercial Realtors association. I started the women’s chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Network for women in the state of New Mexico. You know, all of these things right at this kind of appearances and doing. And I mean, I wanted to do these things, but it was mostly because people were like, you would be good at this. You know, you would be really good at this. And I’d be like, oh, yeah, you know, I would be. And I was so. I was doing these things. So from the outside, it’s like, oh, look, here she goes. More success, more whatever. But I really didn’t. I didn’t love what I was doing. I mean, I might have been good at it, but there wasn’t this sense of I’m really making a difference in somebody’s life. And while I was going through this, I’m still on my journey to trying to overcome my binge eating. I went through two rounds of intensive outpatient therapy at a local eating disorders treatment center here in Albuquerque. Many therapists, I went through programs, coaches, classes, you name it, and everything I went through, I learned something new on my journey. I learned something new for myself. And I would say, well, a couple of things happened. So through all of this, I’M I’m definitely changing my relationship with food. And I get, I decide I want to do this. I want to get certified as a, as a life coach, want to help other people with this. And so, and I’m thinking, I think I might really want to do this like full time as my career. Like, I’m not loving this whole real estate accounting thing. Like, it doesn’t have a lot of meaning or purpose to me. I would love to be able to help other people. And so I start doing that, I start building my business. I. And I can remember. So I get certified as a coach, I have my first clients, I’m working with other people. And as I was kind of putting together my website, this was going to be the first time that I talked about my binge eating outside of my very safe, very curated bubble. And I, at the time, I didn’t really know anything about the nervous system and I didn’t really think it was going to be a problem or a big deal. But to my nervous system it was. And I started binging again. And I had had this period of time where I wasn’t binging. I was feeling really great with my relationship with food. I’m. I’m like, okay, I’m going to do this. I want to help other people. And then it came back and there was like, talk about this. Like, one perception on the outside, what’s actually happening on the inside felt just awful. But here’s what’s amazing about it. Just like everything, when something happens that we don’t love, it has us wanting to figure it out. Like, why is this happening? What’s going on? And so I kept searching, I kept looking, and I learned about the nervous system. And I was like, oh my gosh. This to me is like the missing piece around all of anything that I had done. Around food struggles, around the binge eating, was really understanding the role of the nervous system and how we use food to try to regulate our nervous system. And when I could really start to see everything from the lens of that, it was like, oh, this makes so much sense. And I could see how my nervous system had had a perception of danger and of threat in me sharing this information that had been very so tightly held for so many years, then like, that kind of was like, no, no, no, this isn’t safe. And for so many of us, the behaviors that we do, whether it’s binge eating or whatever, your behavior of choice, that doesn’t feel like choice, that feels like it doesn’t line up with who you really want to be. That behavior is a protective mechanism. It’s trying to keep you safe. Now sometimes it doesn’t feel safe at all. It’s like, how has been eating keeping me safe when I feel terrible afterwards, when I’m so sick, or, you know, if I’ve stayed up all night watching Netflix and now I’ve gotten two hours of sleep, I have to go to work tomorrow. Like, how is that protective?
Amy Stone [00:34:04]:
Right?
Jane Pilger [00:34:04]:
But that’s exactly what’s happening. Our system is trying to protect us.
Amy Stone [00:34:11]:
Yeah, I’ll use the example. And again, like, I’m not a therapist or a researcher, but the sleep, the revenge behavior at night is one that has been pretty thoroughly researched. And it’s like you think, oh, I just shouldn’t do this, but you are better off looking at, like, why do I feel like I only have a chance to do this at night? Like, what is the pressure in my life that I’m escaping for? So like many people who have high intensity jobs in service of other people who are putting their own desires parenting young kids, which takes a huge amount of effort, caregiving, when those people go to bed or you come home from the office, you sit down and put your preferences first. And when Netflix pops up and says, are you still watching? You’re like, screw you. Yes. Don’t even. How dare you ask me. And the solution is not just turning off the tv.
Jane Pilger [00:35:06]:
Right?
Amy Stone [00:35:06]:
It is that for sure. But it’s also, you know, if you can take the time to restructure your life so that you don’t feel that drive. And I think that that’s a really great example. All right, so you today do help people with binge eating. You have your podcast, a YouTube channel, and here’s the thing that I want to throw some more light on this because secrecy is such a big part of your journey. And I. You touched on this. But I do think it’s really interesting you touched on how your nervous system flared up right beforehand and that it was a surprise when you were making the website. But this is really to say not only am I going to, you know, talk to people about it, like in a one on one thing, you were like, I’m going to put myself in a place where people can really see me. And this thing that I’ve kept a secret for so long, I’m going to put it. YouTube is not a kind place to people.
Jane Pilger [00:36:05]:
Correct.
Amy Stone [00:36:05]:
Like, it is an open platform where people come in. I get daily comments from people who are like, I like your glasses. Can I touch you? I mean, it is a weirdo place on the Internet. So, like, walk me through this process from your side. It doesn’t have to be the beginning. It can be wherever. Like, how did you make this decision to not just tell people you could have stayed at home and just, just had a very private, one on one, referral only client business, but you went public. Like, how did you make that decision?
Jane Pilger [00:36:38]:
You know, I think if I really think about. It’s such a great question, but if I think about my journey, I was a part of a larger group, kind of a larger weight loss group. And inside that group, I would talk, I would share my stories. I did some coaching in there, specifically around, around binge eating. And really what made me, I don’t even know, willing, like, what made me just know that I wanted to share this with more people was the amount of people who would tell me, you helped me so much. You sharing your story, you sharing what you had been through, you sharing what’s worked for you, you sharing this helps me not feel alone, helps me, you know, do this in my own life. Or, you know, I might hear from somebody and they’ll say, you know, you told me something, you told me this xyz. And I will have no recollection of the conversation. But then that impact that has stayed with them for years. Or then they tell me the impact that the work that we’ve done around food, how that showed up in the rest of their life, in their relationships or in their work or what. And now I’m going after these things that I never thought were possible. For me, it’s like being able to see that within. That was a very safe group, right? It was safe. I knew these people I could share openly. But because I knew the impact then, I knew that if I shared on a bigger scale, more people would be able to be helped by that. And that really is. Continues to be the goal is like if this, whatever I’m doing, if this reaches one person, then that’s. That’s amazing. I mean, all I really want to do is make an impact and make a difference in the life of somebody who is going through a hard time in somebody who is struggling, who. Somebody who is. Feels broken, feels alone in their struggle. If anything that I say can help give them a different perspective, a different lens, a different way to think about it, a different question to ask themselves, then like, that to me is everything.
Amy Stone [00:38:53]:
I love that. And so, I mean, it’s Eleanor Roosevelt who said, do one thing every day that scares you. And you know, that gets really Glorified. And people turn it into like, go, you know, hike to the top of Mount Everest. But in most cases it’s like speak the thing that you’re scared that people will know into public whether that’s your living room or not. Everybody needs to go out and open a YouTube account or a podcast, but tell your family, tell your friends. And Brene Brown is the first person who I said explained why it’s important to do that. Because when you share your own experience, there’s this side effect which is that you’re giving other people a chance to share those too. And I mentioned her because you mentioned her. And there we go. Okay, so in a second we’re going to do the final questions, the fun ones. I want to make sure that now we give people a chance to know how to find you after they see this interview. You do have the YouTube channel, you do have the podcast. I’ll put those links in the show notes. But go ahead and tell people what you do and how they can find you.
Jane Pilger [00:40:01]:
Yeah, absolutely. So my website is JanePilger.com and there are three main ways that I work with people. So one is called the Gathering is a very simple monthly guided experience where I guide you to slow down and really listen to the wisdom you already have inside you. So instead of searching outside yourself, all the books, all the podcasts, all of the things, you really do have everything inside you to know what to do next. And so the Gathering is a, is a place where we do that together. I also have a group program for, specifically for people who struggle with food and kind of really want to change their relationship, change who they are, their identity as an eater. That’s called cultivate. And then I also do one on one private coaching for really, I mean, binge eating or any, any type of pattern that is showing up for you that you’re like, oh, I don’t like that I do this. This doesn’t line up with who I know I want to be in this world. That’s. Then I do private coaching around that and you can get all that information.
Amy Stone [00:41:08]:
On JanePilger.com so fantastic. You have a special offer for the audience. It is called the Binge Breakthrough Miniseries. So this is a seven part video series and you, you say the value is priceless. Like the MasterCard commercial, which I love. There is a link where people can find this. You’ll find it in the audio show notes. Wherever you’re listening to this show, you’ll find it in the YouTube description. If you’re watching on YouTube. The easiest way, I think, to get these links is to be a subscriber to the imperfect adulting email community, which I call the village. And then those links show up in your email box and you can just click on them. I think that’s easy. I hope you do too. So I do want to say thank you, Jane, very much for that generous offer. Are you ready to wrap this up with my fun questions?
Jane Pilger [00:41:52]:
I am ready. I do want to say one more thing about the offer, though. The Binge Breakthrough mini series. Even if binge eating, if you don’t resonate, you’re not like, I don’t really do that whole out of control thing. But food, my relationship with food is complicated. Definitely check out the miniseries. There will be a lot there for you whether you are a binge eater or not. If you, if anything around your relationship with food is complicated, you will likely gain some wisdom and some insights. Maybe some things you’ve never thought about before as far as it relates to food in the series.
Amy Stone [00:42:25]:
You betcha. I love that. Okay, now you’re ready.
Jane Pilger [00:42:28]:
Yeah, now I’m ready.
Amy Stone [00:42:29]:
Okay, very good. Okay, these are three questions just for fun. Okay. This question is inspired bizarrely by my AAA membership. I want you to think about any or all of the membership that you have going on in your life. Gyms, clubs, professional association. What do you think is the oldest and longest running membership that you’ve got?
Jane Pilger [00:42:51]:
Has to be the gym.
Amy Stone [00:42:52]:
The gym. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. All right, so there you go. So I have, I have a podcast. You have a podcast. Can you suggest another podcast that’s not yours or mine that you think somebody in the audience might enjoy?
Jane Pilger [00:43:04]:
You know, knowing what I know about your audience in terms of people who really like self development, personal improvement, I really like the Mindset Mentor podcast. They’re short episodes. They come out maybe three times a week. They’re like 20 minutes long. And the guy’s name is Rob Dial. I listen to a lot of them. If I’m just looking for something short, Inspirational, mindset, mentor.
Amy Stone [00:43:31]:
You got it. All right. That is a great recommendation. Okay, so this is a little bit related to our topic. Name a gadget. Name a gadget or a tool in your kitchen that you could do without, because of course you could, but you really wouldn’t like it to go without it. What’s something that is in your kitchen that you appreciate?
Jane Pilger [00:43:50]:
You know, I’m probably going to say this because I just used it last night, but. A potato scrubber.
Amy Stone [00:43:57]:
A potato scrubber.
Jane Pilger [00:43:58]:
Potato scrubber. It’s basically just a really, just a dense brush that.
Amy Stone [00:44:03]:
Okay.
Jane Pilger [00:44:04]:
To brush the, the skin of your potato before you cut them and, and cook them. It just gets any dirt or whatever off of it. But I remember the reason I say this is I have been to my in laws and I have made potatoes at their house and they don’t have one.
Amy Stone [00:44:18]:
I have never scrubbed my potatoes.
Jane Pilger [00:44:20]:
Yeah, I mean, I, I mean. So you, you can use, you can definitely be without it. So this may not be the best answer. No.
Amy Stone [00:44:26]:
But that’s why I said that you don’t want to, right?
Jane Pilger [00:44:29]:
I don’t want to because when I, when I use it at my in laws house or don’t use it and I’m, I’m cleaning them myself, I feel like I don’t know that these are getting as clean as if I had my actual little Oxo potato scrubber.
Amy Stone [00:44:42]:
I love that as a suggestion because. Exactly that, exactly that. Like I have made it my entire life just rinsing off my potatoes.
Jane Pilger [00:44:50]:
Well, there you go.
Amy Stone [00:44:51]:
Or soaking them and boiling them. But there is out there a potato scrubber that might make us all a little happier. And that’s why I asked that question. That’s fantastic. That’s e. That’s it. Jane Pilger, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the show.
Jane Pilger [00:45:05]:
Thanks for having me.