If you've ever felt like you should be able to stop eating once you're full, I hope this episode helps you understand why it's rarely that simple. Listen to the full episode, and let's start looking at this pattern through a different lens.

You can manage a team, run a business, raise a family, or juggle a dozen competing priorities. But somehow you're still wondering why you're thinking about food all the time, why body image takes up so much space in your head, or why eating feels so much more complicated than it seems to be for everyone else.

Trying harder should work, right? At least that's what most people assume. Find a better plan, get more disciplined, meal prep on Sunday, throw away the cookies, promise yourself you'll do things differently this week. And somehow, after all that effort, you end up back in the exact same place, wondering why nothing seems to stick. Super annoying.

In this episode, I'm talking about a question that sounds simple but can feel surprisingly hard to answer: What are you actually hungry for? Not in the physical sense, but underneath all of the eating, the urges, the restlessness, and the feeling that something is missing.

I'm talking about what happens when feelings, needs, and wants don't have a place to go. They don't disappear. Often, they show up somewhere else. For many people, food becomes the place where those emotions get expressed.

We'll explore why disordered eating behaviors can feel so hard to let go of, why they often provide real relief in the moment, and what they may be doing beneath the surface. We'll also talk about why recovery isn't only about changing food behaviors. Sometimes the missing piece is learning to recognize what's happening emotionally before food enters the picture.

This episode is less about forcing yourself to change and more about understanding what’s actually happening underneath the behavior. Because once you can see the pattern clearly, you stop treating yourself like the problem.

And toward the end, we get practical about what it actually looks like to build small moments of agency in your life instead of funneling everything into food rules and self-control.

For a lot of people, hearing “release control” feels terrifying, confusing, or just plain irresponsible. Does that mean no structure? No boundaries? No plan? Are you supposed to just trust your body, even when your relationship with food already feels chaotic? And why does it so often feel like control is being framed as “bad,” when for many people it’s the thing that’s been holding everything together?

Let’s be real: there’s a lot of noise out there. People love to throw around these terms like they’re buzzwords for an Instagram post, and frankly, it’s getting old. So, instead of repeating the same tired lines, we’re actually going to dig into the why and how behind it all. 

This week, I am joined by Sarah Rzemieniak,  a Carolyn Costin Institute Certified eating disorder recovery coach. Together, we’re diving into the oh-so-light (read: deeply complex and slightly terrifying) topic of whether clinicians with lived experience should—or even can—work in the field. Should they disclose? Should they keep it locked up tighter than a secret family recipe? And most importantly, how do we make sure we’re actually helping our clients, not just bringing our own baggage into the room?

We’re breaking down what control really means when we talk about eating disorders. Why some people seek it, why others reject it, and how it ties into our emotions, our sense of self, and the general chaos of being a human. Because trust me—this topic is way more layered than “people with eating disorders just want control.”

You’ve probably heard it said: “Eating disorders are a way to maintain control.” It’s not untrue, but honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of the phrase. In this episode of the Understanding Disordered Eating podcast, we’ll explore the connection between control and disordered eating, what control means, and how control of our emotions manifests in eating disorders. Find more information on disordered eating, eating disorder treatment, and deep work therapy in NYC and Brooklyn on my website.