May 11, 2025 • 21 mins
Fasting can be an excellent way to get healthy and lose weight. But it can also be an eating disorder. This is a cautionary tale of some popular fasting personalities with a fasting eating disorder.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello there, Welcome into another episode of the Fasting Guy podcast.
I'm the Fasting Guy, so glad to have you here.
It's been a while since we've done an update. And
you know that I only do podcasts now when I
feel inspired or motivated, or I feel I have something
significant to share. If something moves me or I have
an important update or you know, accomplishment or something like that,
(00:23):
maybe I'll find some new research. Like I don't force
myself to put out podcasts on a schedule. I don't
remember what number this is, but it's a lot we've done.
We've done a lot of podcasts. I could probably pull
it up relatively quick and tell you, but it's it's
it's a ton like I've done. I've done a ton
of podcasts. This will be This will be episode three
(00:45):
hundred and eighty four. That is crazy, Episode three hundred
and eighty four. So I'm going to talk about fasting
as an eating disorder. And I don't want you to
think that that means I'm anti fasting. I don't want
you to think that that means I'm against it and
(01:06):
think it's bad and that it's an eating disorder. But
it can be and I want to talk about it.
I want to talk about instances where it is and
give a specific example. And I don't know, let it
be a warning or advice or guidance or something if
you guys are in the fasting or whatever. But before
we get into that, let's get into the updates. So
(01:27):
my official app that I love more than anything. By
the way, if you don't use Happy Scale app, you should.
You can link it to pretty much any other kind
of weight not any kind, but a lot of the
weight loss apps will link to it, and some of
them you'll have to do a workaround. So, like I
use the Wivings Scale, I love the Withving Scale, and
it automatically uploads your data to a cloud and you
(01:51):
can sync the Withings Scale with my fitness poal. Now
you can't sink the Withving Scale to Happy Scale, but
you can sink the Wving Scale to my Fitness pow
and then you can sink my fitness poal to Happy Scale,
and so it all just updates automatically and you don't
(02:13):
have to manually input numbers. So as of yesterday, I'm
recording this late late at night, after midnight. It's technically
the end of the day. But uh, it was yesterday.
I guess we lost three hundred and seven pounds. We
(02:34):
are sixty six percent of the way there and we
have thirty three percent left to go, thirty three percent
left to go. In the last ninety days, I lost
nine point two pounds, so it's like three pounds a month. Now. Remember,
(02:55):
my goal is to lose thirty to thirty five pounds
a month, my goal or a year, I'm sorry, thirty
to thirty five pounds a year, that's my goal. I'm
on a five to six year plan. I said five years,
but I'd be happy if it was six. I know,
the closer I get to my goal, wait, the more
things will slow down. But if you look at my
(03:16):
last ninety days, nine point two pounds, which is about
three pounds a month, which is right on track with
my yearly goal to lose, you know, thirty to thirty
five pounds, it'd actually be a little bit more, be
thirty what it be thirty six, thirty six, thirty seven,
(03:38):
it'd be like thirty seven pounds if we stayed on
track with that. But you know, it hasn't all been
like that, Like I think January was kind of break
even ish so anyway, I fillot, We're on track, and
I feel good about it. What I mainly want to
talk about this episode was fasting as an eating disorder.
(03:58):
So there's this guy on you tube. I followed him.
He probably went away for a year or something. His
name is Jerome. His channel is called Finally Fasting. Finally Fasting,
and what he does what he did first time around,
and then he disappeared for like a year, a year
and a half, and then he popped back up again.
(04:18):
He does like sixty five or ninety sixty five to
ninety hour fasts, so he won't eat anything for like
sixty sixty five to ninety hours, and then when that
fast is over, this man just binges on all kinds
of food. Now, to his credit, he has started trying
(04:41):
to be a little bit more selective with his food.
I know. Originally he would just eat all kinds of stuff.
He would eat all kinds of desserts and sweets and
meals and stuff, I mean just all he was. Whatever
he wanted, he just to eat it, and he would
eat insane amounts of it, like four or five six
thousand galleries of it, I mean, And he records him.
(05:01):
You watch him eating it, but you know, he lost
down to he was really really slim, and he gained
a following on YouTube and he was an inspiration. I
thought it was impressive. You know, I don't do fast
like that, and I have done extended fast. I've done
sixty something hour fast before, I've done you know, nine
(05:25):
day fast. I did a nine day fast one time.
I've done seven day fast. So I've done some long
fast like I don't just do him back to back
to back. That's what he does. He'll go like sixty
to ninety hours. Then he'll eat and his eating may
last like two three hours. Like he'll start eating and
he'll eat something, they'll break a few minutes, you'll eat
some more stuff like he'll will see it for two
or three hours, and then he'll go right back into
(05:46):
sixty five to ninety hours and fast. Anyway, we're really
well for him. He lost all kinds of weight. He
was super slim, and then he just disappeared like he
just quick uploading videos gone, kind of like the fasting
fat Man. I followed him too, that he fasted like
three hundred days or something. An crazy amount of his
channel still up. You want to go look at his
(06:06):
old videos fasting Planman, he disappeared. He hasn't uploaded a
video in two three years. I don't know if he died.
I don't know if he you know's there's theories that
he died from COVID. There's theories that the fasting killed h.
I mean, I don't know. He could have just disappeared.
He's not given any updates. But so this derma finally fasting.
He shows back up, like after being absent for a
(06:28):
year and a half or two years or something. And
when he shows back up, lot's he's heavier than he
was when he left off, but he's he's not super big.
And he reveals that he fell off the wagon and
he gained all this weight back and all this stuff,
and now he's back on again. He's been doing ninety
hour rolling fast and he's lost x amount of weight
blah blah blah, and now he's back up loading videos
(06:50):
every four or five days. So the work that I've
done with working with a therapist, things that have helped
me a lot, besides just eating high protein and you know,
trying to only eat when I'm hungry and the many
things that I do. One of the things that really
(07:11):
helped me with seeing this therapist where we really did
the work on what the underlying problems of my eating
is eating disorder. I mean, I just binge food for
no reason. I've talked about it on previous episodes. You
can go back and listen to them. But you know
I would just and I would just feel the ultimate
shame and just feel horrible about it, and then that
would put send me in a spiral and I'd gain
a lot of weight back. It's just, you know, it's
(07:33):
just a constant struggle. And you know, working with this therapist,
I you know, I've learned that it's with everybody, this
goes back to some kind of trauma, usually childhood trauma,
but doesn't necessarily have to be childhood trauma. With me,
it is and we've worked through it, and like that,
I'm happy to say that that that doesn't control me.
You know, I want to knock on wood because I
don't know it could come back tomorrow. I don't know.
(07:56):
I've dealt with it my whole life, but I would
say I've not ninety seven ninety eight percent beat that
binging thing from the childhood trauma. And you've heard me
talk stories about it before. How just be you know,
I have a frustrating day, or there'll be a traumatic
event coming up in my life and I won't even
know it's coming, but I'll just know suddenly I'm eating everything,
(08:19):
and I just won't eat everything all the time. That
it's that inter protective thing, this inner part of your
brain that seeks to comfort you and protect you with food.
It knows that this traumatic date is coming up for
you before you ever register it consciously, and it starts
trying to protect you. It's it's the thing that causes
you to binge eat. It's not doing it because it
hates you. It's doing it because it thinks it's helping you.
(08:41):
And that's a big part of the process of overcoming
it with therapy. So I don't want to get too
deep into that, but you know, I would just be.
I would just suddenly feel compelled and pull into a
gas station to buy, like, you know, six different kinds
of Little Debbie snack cakes and a carton of chocolate
milk and some chips and stuff, and I would just
binge and binge and binge and binge, and you know,
go back buy some more six hours later and do it.
(09:03):
You know, I don't do nothing. I don't do anything
like that anymore. Like God, I can't tell you the
last time I did anything remotely like that. So I'll
have a day where I'll be like, you know what,
She's gonna have a carb day today. I'm gonna eat
the cheeseburger fries and I want to I want a
piece of key Line pie today. I did that. I
don't know, four weeks ago or something, had the cheeseburger,
(09:25):
the fries, had this key Line pie. No guilt about it,
was no bench, it just it was a decision I made.
And it's amazing to be in control like that because
that's it's how normal people as how normal people live,
as all normal people associate with food. And I owe
a lot to therapy and I having a great therapist. Anyways,
So this guy's back, this Jerome is finally fasting his
(09:46):
back and he's just you know, and then he'll he'll
lose and then he'll post videos like losing twenty pounds
in twenty four days, which he did this. He just
posted this video two weeks ago, and then he posts
after that it's a sixty five hour fast. He's doing
round nine nine sixty five hour fasts in a row,
and then he posts he completed his tenth rolling sixty
(10:07):
five hours fast in the row. And then he'll post
about how he went on vacation and gained twenty pounds,
and then then he'll post a video about how you
don't strive for perfection. You just got to do the
best you can to be accountable. And then his most
recent video was two days ago and the title of
it is I'm struggling. And you go watch his videos,
but he's struggling, and he you know, he binged, he
(10:29):
fastest he fasted whatever it was, sixty or sixty five
hours or something, and then he did his binge and
then he was going to go back into fasting, but
lo and behold, he had to eat again the next day,
and then he had to eat again that night, and
then the next day he had to keep eating. And
now he's at the time he recorded this video, he's
like three four five days into eating and he goes, well,
I'm not really binging too bad. It's not too bad
(10:51):
or something. I'm like, man, it doesn't matter. You have
no control over what's happening in your life, because you
still have the same eating disorder. He has the same
eating disorder I had. It's a binge eating disorder. It
is an uncontrolled, unaware hit you out of the blue
binge to coke, and until you realize it and see it,
(11:13):
you can't get better. And so I've tried to be
supportive of him, and I've commented on a couple of
his videos, and I commented on this last one. I
tried to be sincere with him and let him know
that I'm on his team. I'm not trying to lash
(11:34):
out at him or make him feel bad, but he
is me. And I'll read to you the comment that
I made on his video, and you can be the judge.
So I posted on there, Hey man, my heart breaks
for you, my friend. As I mentioned in my comment
on your last video, I knew a binge was coming
for you. You say it isn't a binge, but it is
(11:55):
to you, or you wouldn't be mentioning it and making
this video. You have an extreme eating disorder, and what
makes it so difficult for you is that by participating
in your eating disorder, you consider it being successful. What
do I mean by that? He has set up the
system where he binges and purges. Now, the old traditional
binge and purge is where somebody will binge and eat
(12:16):
and then two minutes after they eat, they go to
the bathroom, they poke their finger down their throat and
they hurl it up in the bathroom. That's the traditional binge.
In perche, He's doing the same thing, He's just doing
it a different way. He's just binging out on this
day for like three four hours, just eating insane amounts
of food, and then he purges it by fasting for
sixty five or ninety hours. It's the same disease, it's
(12:37):
just presenting in a different way. So that's what I
meant by that. So I continued on with my comment
to him on his latest video. You don't binge in
purge in in the general traditional sense. You binge in
extreme fast. It's a slightly different presentation of the same problem.
The combination of how the body works and how an
eating disordered mind works means that this is always going
(12:59):
to have happen, and the extreme mental toll it takes
on you will just compound until one day catastrophic failure.
I don't do these comments to attack you. I do
them because I am you and I care, and I
mean not at one hundred percent. I am he, he
is me. Please find a good therapist and start doing
(13:25):
fre frequency sessions. I wrote that wrong, one that understands
eating disorders and can help you start to address the
trauma that caused this disorder. Then commit to eating every
day two meals, high protein, low car real foods, and
embrace slow, steady, consistent, life long results. Hang in, brother,
(13:47):
You don't have a bigger fan than me anywhere on
the planet. I promise you that. Now. He mentioned something
at ten twenty eight that he had something he didn't
want to talk about that was on his mind, and
I don't think he's connecting the dots that the reason
he can't stop eating and he can't go back into
that sixty five hour fast and he's been trying to
(14:08):
do it for three or four days, is because his
mind that's messed up from this trauma that he has,
whether it be childhood trauma or early adulthood trauma, or
maybe trauma that happened to him five years ago. I
don't know when it happened. The way his brain has
dealt with it is it tries to comfort him with
this binging and so he mentioned that he was going
(14:30):
through some stuff, but he wouldn't going to really talk
about it, and so it happened at ten minutes and
twenty eight seconds in the video. So you know you
can do timestamps in your comments, So I did the
timestamp ten twenty eight. Ten twenty eight is the underlying
trigger that is causing you to eat in ways that
you can't explain, because he said he couldn't explain it.
The limbic system, the mammalian brain, which sits on top
of it, plays a significant role in emotions and emotional regulation.
(14:54):
At some point in your past, as part of your
brain used food as a refuge, as a comfort, as
a hedge of protection. When it feels like you're even
keeled day to day is threatened, it will take over
without you knowing it to protect you. It thinks, it
thinks it's I put. It thinks you are helping, but
I should have really did some editing on this comment.
(15:16):
It thinks it's helping. I'm not a therapist, but I've
made enormous strides by seeing a therapist. My eating disorder
is ninety nine percent of on issue more and I
want to share with you the very first step that
I took, and so I shared with him something I
have shared with you guys in previous episodes. When your
impulse to eat starts to kick in uncontrollably, try to
(15:38):
recognize it and imagine this traumatized part of your psyche.
You don't have to know how or why or where
the damage or the trauma comes from. None of that's necessary.
Just know that it exists and put an imaginary face
to it. For me, I imagine that part of me as
being a child version of me, a child version of
me that I could have a conversation with, And when
that compulsion to eat shows up suddenly and I reckoncognize
(16:00):
it's coming for no reason, I would have a conversation
with that part of me, and I would tell that
part of me, hey man, I'm okay. I know you're
trying to protect me, but I'm good. I promise. I
needed you to shelter me during that time of trauma
and previously in my life, But I'm okay. Now I'm
going to be fine. I've got this, and I love
and I appreciate you for trying to shelter me, to
(16:22):
bring me comfort, to make me feel safe. But I
just want to assure you that I'm fine and I've
got it this time, I promise I do. It sounds silly,
but it's a powerful step. It's a powerful step. One.
If I didn't care about your brother, I would not
(16:42):
have wasted all this time writing this. I am you,
And then I gave him a heart emoji. Look, he
has an eating disorder and he's just compounding his eating
disorder with this extreme fasting and binging. He's just he
(17:05):
has hacked his eating disorder in a way that results
in weight loss, and he thinks that's success. But I
want to present something to you and ask and ask
you if this makes sense to you. The teenage girl
the binge is out food at dinner and then she
goes to the bathroom and sticks her frame down her throat,
(17:26):
throws it up. And I don't mean to be sexist
about it. Could be a guy, but you know, the
typical image we all have in our head is it's
a girl. And I think it's mostly is a girl's females.
That girl is losing weight, she's being successful. Her eating
disorder is successfully causing her to lose weight. That is
(17:48):
the exact same thing that Jerome from finally fasting is doing.
He has found a way to do his eating disorder
in a way that is accepted. And not only is
it accepted, it brings him pray. You go to his
comments and look at all the people that tell him
how amazing he is, and keep up the good work.
And you're an inspiration, and I'm trying to do the
same thing you're doing. This reinforces in his mind that
(18:10):
what he's doing is not an eating disorder, that it's healthy,
and it's not so when I started this episode, I
wanted to make very clear that I by no means
saying that fasting is unhealthy. That you can do extended
fast and to be healthy. You can do intermittent fasting
and it can be healthy. You can do some combinations
of those and it be healthy. But fasting and binging
(18:32):
and then immediately fasting and then binging that is not healthy.
That is a eating disorder. He has adapted the binge
and purge to be something that is And I don't
want to say it's socially acceptable, because fasting isn't one
hundred percent socially acceptable, but a lot more people accept
that than accept the old traditional binging and purging. Everybody
(18:56):
will tell you you can't hardly fight. You might find
one or two people. Try to find somebody that tells
you the old fashioned binging and purging thing is healthy.
You will find a million times more people that will
tell you that fasting is healthy. So he's justifying his
eating disorder, and he feels fine with it because he
thinks that it's that it's not an eating disorder, and
(19:17):
it is, and I feel for him. So I just
say that as a warning. If you want to do
an extended fast, do it. You want to do a
sixty five hour fast, do it. You want fast ninety hours,
do it. I mean, you know, check with your doctor,
make sure you get the green light, make sure you're healthy.
If I was going to go ninety hours, I'd probably
do some electro lights every day something like that, and
(19:39):
some water. But whatever, after you do your due diligence
and all that stuff. I'm not a doctor, so I
can't tell you to do it. You need to check
with a professional. But after you clear all that, you
decide to do the nine to day fast, do it,
but don't break it, and then binge uncontrollably for the
next five or six hours, know, break your fast with
(20:03):
you know, like one egg and a strip of bacon,
you know, a high protein, high fat kind of a thing.
And then you know, two three hours later, maybe you
have some kind of a normal, you know, decent meal
that's basically low carb, high protein. But you know you're
not in there binging, but you know it's the normal portion.
(20:23):
It's kind of a meal. And then if you know,
if you want another one today, fine, if you don't
be done with it that day, and then the next
day you go back to your normal ways of what
should be eating normally, which is basically about two meals
a day. I think most people should just basically eat
two meals a day. There's no evidence that people ever
historically eate three meals a day. That is a that
is an invention of food companies and you know, modern advertising.
(20:47):
So that's not an eating disorder. That's going back to
a normal, you know, eating in a sensible way, eating
and sensible time frame, eating foods that are nourishing and
satisfying and sensible. Whereas what this guy does, it's just
just not it's just not And I feel for him
(21:08):
my heart when I wrote that comment of him, and
told him my heart breaks from it really does, because
he's caught up in the cycle of thinking he's doing
something good and healthy, thinking that he's doing the right thing,
but he's not. He's binging and purging, he's putting the
proverbial finger down his throat. I hope this episode helps you,
(21:31):
hope that you're doing well in your journey. I do
so love getting messages from you guys. As I am
looking at the time on this when I see it's long,
so I may go chop a bunch of stuff out
of the middle of it. I don't know. We'll see,
but anyways, appreciate you being here. We'll talk to you
next time.
Hello there, Welcome into another episode of the Fasting Guy podcast.
I'm the Fasting Guy, so glad to have you here.
It's been a while since we've done an update. And
you know that I only do podcasts now when I
feel inspired or motivated, or I feel I have something
significant to share. If something moves me or I have
an important update or you know, accomplishment or something like that,
(00:23):
maybe I'll find some new research. Like I don't force
myself to put out podcasts on a schedule. I don't
remember what number this is, but it's a lot we've done.
We've done a lot of podcasts. I could probably pull
it up relatively quick and tell you, but it's it's
it's a ton like I've done. I've done a ton
of podcasts. This will be This will be episode three
(00:45):
hundred and eighty four. That is crazy, Episode three hundred
and eighty four. So I'm going to talk about fasting
as an eating disorder. And I don't want you to
think that that means I'm anti fasting. I don't want
you to think that that means I'm against it and
(01:06):
think it's bad and that it's an eating disorder. But
it can be and I want to talk about it.
I want to talk about instances where it is and
give a specific example. And I don't know, let it
be a warning or advice or guidance or something if
you guys are in the fasting or whatever. But before
we get into that, let's get into the updates. So
(01:27):
my official app that I love more than anything. By
the way, if you don't use Happy Scale app, you should.
You can link it to pretty much any other kind
of weight not any kind, but a lot of the
weight loss apps will link to it, and some of
them you'll have to do a workaround. So, like I
use the Wivings Scale, I love the Withving Scale, and
it automatically uploads your data to a cloud and you
(01:51):
can sync the Withings Scale with my fitness poal. Now
you can't sink the Withving Scale to Happy Scale, but
you can sink the Wving Scale to my Fitness pow
and then you can sink my fitness poal to Happy Scale,
and so it all just updates automatically and you don't
(02:13):
have to manually input numbers. So as of yesterday, I'm
recording this late late at night, after midnight. It's technically
the end of the day. But uh, it was yesterday.
I guess we lost three hundred and seven pounds. We
(02:34):
are sixty six percent of the way there and we
have thirty three percent left to go, thirty three percent
left to go. In the last ninety days, I lost
nine point two pounds, so it's like three pounds a month. Now. Remember,
(02:55):
my goal is to lose thirty to thirty five pounds
a month, my goal or a year, I'm sorry, thirty
to thirty five pounds a year, that's my goal. I'm
on a five to six year plan. I said five years,
but I'd be happy if it was six. I know,
the closer I get to my goal, wait, the more
things will slow down. But if you look at my
(03:16):
last ninety days, nine point two pounds, which is about
three pounds a month, which is right on track with
my yearly goal to lose, you know, thirty to thirty
five pounds, it'd actually be a little bit more, be
thirty what it be thirty six, thirty six, thirty seven,
(03:38):
it'd be like thirty seven pounds if we stayed on
track with that. But you know, it hasn't all been
like that, Like I think January was kind of break
even ish so anyway, I fillot, We're on track, and
I feel good about it. What I mainly want to
talk about this episode was fasting as an eating disorder.
(03:58):
So there's this guy on you tube. I followed him.
He probably went away for a year or something. His
name is Jerome. His channel is called Finally Fasting. Finally Fasting,
and what he does what he did first time around,
and then he disappeared for like a year, a year
and a half, and then he popped back up again.
(04:18):
He does like sixty five or ninety sixty five to
ninety hour fasts, so he won't eat anything for like
sixty sixty five to ninety hours, and then when that
fast is over, this man just binges on all kinds
of food. Now, to his credit, he has started trying
(04:41):
to be a little bit more selective with his food.
I know. Originally he would just eat all kinds of stuff.
He would eat all kinds of desserts and sweets and
meals and stuff, I mean just all he was. Whatever
he wanted, he just to eat it, and he would
eat insane amounts of it, like four or five six
thousand galleries of it, I mean, And he records him.
(05:01):
You watch him eating it, but you know, he lost
down to he was really really slim, and he gained
a following on YouTube and he was an inspiration. I
thought it was impressive. You know, I don't do fast
like that, and I have done extended fast. I've done
sixty something hour fast before, I've done you know, nine
(05:25):
day fast. I did a nine day fast one time.
I've done seven day fast. So I've done some long
fast like I don't just do him back to back
to back. That's what he does. He'll go like sixty
to ninety hours. Then he'll eat and his eating may
last like two three hours. Like he'll start eating and
he'll eat something, they'll break a few minutes, you'll eat
some more stuff like he'll will see it for two
or three hours, and then he'll go right back into
(05:46):
sixty five to ninety hours and fast. Anyway, we're really
well for him. He lost all kinds of weight. He
was super slim, and then he just disappeared like he
just quick uploading videos gone, kind of like the fasting
fat Man. I followed him too, that he fasted like
three hundred days or something. An crazy amount of his
channel still up. You want to go look at his
(06:06):
old videos fasting Planman, he disappeared. He hasn't uploaded a
video in two three years. I don't know if he died.
I don't know if he you know's there's theories that
he died from COVID. There's theories that the fasting killed h.
I mean, I don't know. He could have just disappeared.
He's not given any updates. But so this derma finally fasting.
He shows back up, like after being absent for a
(06:28):
year and a half or two years or something. And
when he shows back up, lot's he's heavier than he
was when he left off, but he's he's not super big.
And he reveals that he fell off the wagon and
he gained all this weight back and all this stuff,
and now he's back on again. He's been doing ninety
hour rolling fast and he's lost x amount of weight
blah blah blah, and now he's back up loading videos
(06:50):
every four or five days. So the work that I've
done with working with a therapist, things that have helped
me a lot, besides just eating high protein and you know,
trying to only eat when I'm hungry and the many
things that I do. One of the things that really
(07:11):
helped me with seeing this therapist where we really did
the work on what the underlying problems of my eating
is eating disorder. I mean, I just binge food for
no reason. I've talked about it on previous episodes. You
can go back and listen to them. But you know
I would just and I would just feel the ultimate
shame and just feel horrible about it, and then that
would put send me in a spiral and I'd gain
a lot of weight back. It's just, you know, it's
(07:33):
just a constant struggle. And you know, working with this therapist,
I you know, I've learned that it's with everybody, this
goes back to some kind of trauma, usually childhood trauma,
but doesn't necessarily have to be childhood trauma. With me,
it is and we've worked through it, and like that,
I'm happy to say that that that doesn't control me.
You know, I want to knock on wood because I
don't know it could come back tomorrow. I don't know.
(07:56):
I've dealt with it my whole life, but I would
say I've not ninety seven ninety eight percent beat that
binging thing from the childhood trauma. And you've heard me
talk stories about it before. How just be you know,
I have a frustrating day, or there'll be a traumatic
event coming up in my life and I won't even
know it's coming, but I'll just know suddenly I'm eating everything,
(08:19):
and I just won't eat everything all the time. That
it's that inter protective thing, this inner part of your
brain that seeks to comfort you and protect you with food.
It knows that this traumatic date is coming up for
you before you ever register it consciously, and it starts
trying to protect you. It's it's the thing that causes
you to binge eat. It's not doing it because it
hates you. It's doing it because it thinks it's helping you.
(08:41):
And that's a big part of the process of overcoming
it with therapy. So I don't want to get too
deep into that, but you know, I would just be.
I would just suddenly feel compelled and pull into a
gas station to buy, like, you know, six different kinds
of Little Debbie snack cakes and a carton of chocolate
milk and some chips and stuff, and I would just
binge and binge and binge and binge, and you know,
go back buy some more six hours later and do it.
(09:03):
You know, I don't do nothing. I don't do anything
like that anymore. Like God, I can't tell you the
last time I did anything remotely like that. So I'll
have a day where I'll be like, you know what,
She's gonna have a carb day today. I'm gonna eat
the cheeseburger fries and I want to I want a
piece of key Line pie today. I did that. I
don't know, four weeks ago or something, had the cheeseburger,
(09:25):
the fries, had this key Line pie. No guilt about it,
was no bench, it just it was a decision I made.
And it's amazing to be in control like that because
that's it's how normal people as how normal people live,
as all normal people associate with food. And I owe
a lot to therapy and I having a great therapist. Anyways,
So this guy's back, this Jerome is finally fasting his
(09:46):
back and he's just you know, and then he'll he'll
lose and then he'll post videos like losing twenty pounds
in twenty four days, which he did this. He just
posted this video two weeks ago, and then he posts
after that it's a sixty five hour fast. He's doing
round nine nine sixty five hour fasts in a row,
and then he posts he completed his tenth rolling sixty
(10:07):
five hours fast in the row. And then he'll post
about how he went on vacation and gained twenty pounds,
and then then he'll post a video about how you
don't strive for perfection. You just got to do the
best you can to be accountable. And then his most
recent video was two days ago and the title of
it is I'm struggling. And you go watch his videos,
but he's struggling, and he you know, he binged, he
(10:29):
fastest he fasted whatever it was, sixty or sixty five
hours or something, and then he did his binge and
then he was going to go back into fasting, but
lo and behold, he had to eat again the next day,
and then he had to eat again that night, and
then the next day he had to keep eating. And
now he's at the time he recorded this video, he's
like three four five days into eating and he goes, well,
I'm not really binging too bad. It's not too bad
(10:51):
or something. I'm like, man, it doesn't matter. You have
no control over what's happening in your life, because you
still have the same eating disorder. He has the same
eating disorder I had. It's a binge eating disorder. It
is an uncontrolled, unaware hit you out of the blue
binge to coke, and until you realize it and see it,
(11:13):
you can't get better. And so I've tried to be
supportive of him, and I've commented on a couple of
his videos, and I commented on this last one. I
tried to be sincere with him and let him know
that I'm on his team. I'm not trying to lash
(11:34):
out at him or make him feel bad, but he
is me. And I'll read to you the comment that
I made on his video, and you can be the judge.
So I posted on there, Hey man, my heart breaks
for you, my friend. As I mentioned in my comment
on your last video, I knew a binge was coming
for you. You say it isn't a binge, but it is
(11:55):
to you, or you wouldn't be mentioning it and making
this video. You have an extreme eating disorder, and what
makes it so difficult for you is that by participating
in your eating disorder, you consider it being successful. What
do I mean by that? He has set up the
system where he binges and purges. Now, the old traditional
binge and purge is where somebody will binge and eat
(12:16):
and then two minutes after they eat, they go to
the bathroom, they poke their finger down their throat and
they hurl it up in the bathroom. That's the traditional binge.
In perche, He's doing the same thing, He's just doing
it a different way. He's just binging out on this
day for like three four hours, just eating insane amounts
of food, and then he purges it by fasting for
sixty five or ninety hours. It's the same disease, it's
(12:37):
just presenting in a different way. So that's what I
meant by that. So I continued on with my comment
to him on his latest video. You don't binge in
purge in in the general traditional sense. You binge in
extreme fast. It's a slightly different presentation of the same problem.
The combination of how the body works and how an
eating disordered mind works means that this is always going
(12:59):
to have happen, and the extreme mental toll it takes
on you will just compound until one day catastrophic failure.
I don't do these comments to attack you. I do
them because I am you and I care, and I
mean not at one hundred percent. I am he, he
is me. Please find a good therapist and start doing
(13:25):
fre frequency sessions. I wrote that wrong, one that understands
eating disorders and can help you start to address the
trauma that caused this disorder. Then commit to eating every
day two meals, high protein, low car real foods, and
embrace slow, steady, consistent, life long results. Hang in, brother,
(13:47):
You don't have a bigger fan than me anywhere on
the planet. I promise you that. Now. He mentioned something
at ten twenty eight that he had something he didn't
want to talk about that was on his mind, and
I don't think he's connecting the dots that the reason
he can't stop eating and he can't go back into
that sixty five hour fast and he's been trying to
(14:08):
do it for three or four days, is because his
mind that's messed up from this trauma that he has,
whether it be childhood trauma or early adulthood trauma, or
maybe trauma that happened to him five years ago. I
don't know when it happened. The way his brain has
dealt with it is it tries to comfort him with
this binging and so he mentioned that he was going
(14:30):
through some stuff, but he wouldn't going to really talk
about it, and so it happened at ten minutes and
twenty eight seconds in the video. So you know you
can do timestamps in your comments, So I did the
timestamp ten twenty eight. Ten twenty eight is the underlying
trigger that is causing you to eat in ways that
you can't explain, because he said he couldn't explain it.
The limbic system, the mammalian brain, which sits on top
of it, plays a significant role in emotions and emotional regulation.
(14:54):
At some point in your past, as part of your
brain used food as a refuge, as a comfort, as
a hedge of protection. When it feels like you're even
keeled day to day is threatened, it will take over
without you knowing it to protect you. It thinks, it
thinks it's I put. It thinks you are helping, but
I should have really did some editing on this comment.
(15:16):
It thinks it's helping. I'm not a therapist, but I've
made enormous strides by seeing a therapist. My eating disorder
is ninety nine percent of on issue more and I
want to share with you the very first step that
I took, and so I shared with him something I
have shared with you guys in previous episodes. When your
impulse to eat starts to kick in uncontrollably, try to
(15:38):
recognize it and imagine this traumatized part of your psyche.
You don't have to know how or why or where
the damage or the trauma comes from. None of that's necessary.
Just know that it exists and put an imaginary face
to it. For me, I imagine that part of me as
being a child version of me, a child version of
me that I could have a conversation with, And when
that compulsion to eat shows up suddenly and I reckoncognize
(16:00):
it's coming for no reason, I would have a conversation
with that part of me, and I would tell that
part of me, hey man, I'm okay. I know you're
trying to protect me, but I'm good. I promise. I
needed you to shelter me during that time of trauma
and previously in my life, But I'm okay. Now I'm
going to be fine. I've got this, and I love
and I appreciate you for trying to shelter me, to
(16:22):
bring me comfort, to make me feel safe. But I
just want to assure you that I'm fine and I've
got it this time, I promise I do. It sounds silly,
but it's a powerful step. It's a powerful step. One.
If I didn't care about your brother, I would not
(16:42):
have wasted all this time writing this. I am you,
And then I gave him a heart emoji. Look, he
has an eating disorder and he's just compounding his eating
disorder with this extreme fasting and binging. He's just he
(17:05):
has hacked his eating disorder in a way that results
in weight loss, and he thinks that's success. But I
want to present something to you and ask and ask
you if this makes sense to you. The teenage girl
the binge is out food at dinner and then she
goes to the bathroom and sticks her frame down her throat,
(17:26):
throws it up. And I don't mean to be sexist
about it. Could be a guy, but you know, the
typical image we all have in our head is it's
a girl. And I think it's mostly is a girl's females.
That girl is losing weight, she's being successful. Her eating
disorder is successfully causing her to lose weight. That is
(17:48):
the exact same thing that Jerome from finally fasting is doing.
He has found a way to do his eating disorder
in a way that is accepted. And not only is
it accepted, it brings him pray. You go to his
comments and look at all the people that tell him
how amazing he is, and keep up the good work.
And you're an inspiration, and I'm trying to do the
same thing you're doing. This reinforces in his mind that
(18:10):
what he's doing is not an eating disorder, that it's healthy,
and it's not so when I started this episode, I
wanted to make very clear that I by no means
saying that fasting is unhealthy. That you can do extended
fast and to be healthy. You can do intermittent fasting
and it can be healthy. You can do some combinations
of those and it be healthy. But fasting and binging
(18:32):
and then immediately fasting and then binging that is not healthy.
That is a eating disorder. He has adapted the binge
and purge to be something that is And I don't
want to say it's socially acceptable, because fasting isn't one
hundred percent socially acceptable, but a lot more people accept
that than accept the old traditional binging and purging. Everybody
(18:56):
will tell you you can't hardly fight. You might find
one or two people. Try to find somebody that tells
you the old fashioned binging and purging thing is healthy.
You will find a million times more people that will
tell you that fasting is healthy. So he's justifying his
eating disorder, and he feels fine with it because he
thinks that it's that it's not an eating disorder, and
(19:17):
it is, and I feel for him. So I just
say that as a warning. If you want to do
an extended fast, do it. You want to do a
sixty five hour fast, do it. You want fast ninety hours,
do it. I mean, you know, check with your doctor,
make sure you get the green light, make sure you're healthy.
If I was going to go ninety hours, I'd probably
do some electro lights every day something like that, and
(19:39):
some water. But whatever, after you do your due diligence
and all that stuff. I'm not a doctor, so I
can't tell you to do it. You need to check
with a professional. But after you clear all that, you
decide to do the nine to day fast, do it,
but don't break it, and then binge uncontrollably for the
next five or six hours, know, break your fast with
(20:03):
you know, like one egg and a strip of bacon,
you know, a high protein, high fat kind of a thing.
And then you know, two three hours later, maybe you
have some kind of a normal, you know, decent meal
that's basically low carb, high protein. But you know you're
not in there binging, but you know it's the normal portion.
(20:23):
It's kind of a meal. And then if you know,
if you want another one today, fine, if you don't
be done with it that day, and then the next
day you go back to your normal ways of what
should be eating normally, which is basically about two meals
a day. I think most people should just basically eat
two meals a day. There's no evidence that people ever
historically eate three meals a day. That is a that
is an invention of food companies and you know, modern advertising.
(20:47):
So that's not an eating disorder. That's going back to
a normal, you know, eating in a sensible way, eating
and sensible time frame, eating foods that are nourishing and
satisfying and sensible. Whereas what this guy does, it's just
just not it's just not And I feel for him
(21:08):
my heart when I wrote that comment of him, and
told him my heart breaks from it really does, because
he's caught up in the cycle of thinking he's doing
something good and healthy, thinking that he's doing the right thing,
but he's not. He's binging and purging, he's putting the
proverbial finger down his throat. I hope this episode helps you,
(21:31):
hope that you're doing well in your journey. I do
so love getting messages from you guys. As I am
looking at the time on this when I see it's long,
so I may go chop a bunch of stuff out
of the middle of it. I don't know. We'll see,
but anyways, appreciate you being here. We'll talk to you
next time.
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