Michelle Yates (00:00)
Welcome to Nourished and Free, the podcast where mental health meets physical health, food guilt gets ghosted, and toxic wellness advice gets roasted. I'm your host, Michelle Yates, registered dietitian, certified health mindset coach, and I also hold my master's in health psychology. Today, we're going to be tackling a big one. We're going to be tackling over eaters anonymous. Maybe you've heard people rave about it. Maybe you've heard horror stories like I have.

Is it a lifeline? Is it just another diet in disguise? In this episode, I wanna break down the origins, the 12-step model, the red flags I've seen in my work with clients, and whether OA actually helps with binge eating or just makes the problem worse. If you've ever wondered, would OA work for me? Definitely stick around. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly where and how OA might help, where it falls short, and what I might recommend to you instead.

And hey, before we dive in, if you are loving this show, you've gotten value from it. You feel like it's been supportive for you. It would mean the world to me if you would just hit that pause button for two seconds. Jump over to the home page of this show and leave a quick rating and review and then come right back to finish this episode. That's how this podcast reaches more people and helps more people heal their relationship with food and get freedom from that food noise. So thank you for.

your reviews in advance.

So in my years as a registered dietitian working in the field of eating disorders and in particular working with those who struggle with binge eating, Overeaters Anonymous has come up a lot. Many of the women I've worked with have tried it before to try and overcome binge eating and or emotional eating. And based on the stories that I've heard, there's quite a few red flags with the program Overeaters Anonymous or I might call it OA. I decided, you know what, let's do it.

unofficial investigation and get to the bottom of this from the perspective of a dietitian who works with people who struggle with overeating. So if you don't know, Overeaters Anonymous is modeled after the 12-step process used in Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. And rather than being focused on alcohol or drugs, it's focused on food. OA believes that food

can be an addiction. Therefore, abstinence from whatever the trigger foods are must be practiced in order to find freedom from problematic food behaviors. Any relapses in eating the trigger foods are considered a relapse in addiction and treated as such. Like other substance abuse support groups, OA is free, it's worldwide, and members can attend the meetings either in person or online.

So Over-Eaters Anonymous was founded in 1960 by Rozanne S. in Los Angeles, California. It was inspired by the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. Rozanne wanted to apply the same model of abstinence for alcohol onto issues with compulsive overeating. Of note, this was far before binge eating or binge eating disorder was an established eating disorder.

The unfortunate reality is that this is not a fair comparison to make. You can't compare food to alcohol. No one needs alcohol or narcotics to survive. But we all need food to live. It's a basic human biological necessity. Even pure table sugar can be used by the body for energy, right? Like if that's your only option, technically it'll do. It'll work.

In other words, your body can put it to good use. Alcohol, on the other hand, is toxic at any dose. Your body's never gonna put it to good use. It's just a toxin, and obviously we have our reasons for consuming it regardless of that, but it's not necessary for any biological reason. Of course, this is where people love to say, well, but sugar is addictive, and it lights up the same parts of the brain as cocaine.

Well, to this I say, yeah, but we feel good when we eat good food. That's not surprising. We also feel good when we hug a loved one or listen to music that was played during our high school prom or a kitten settles onto our lap and starts purring uncontrollably and starts making biscuits. I don't know about you, but that lights up my brain like nothing else. It's dopamine. This isn't news, nor is it automatically an issue.

the magnitude of a dopaminergic response that we need to be paying attention to. What is the magnitude of dopamine that's being released here, as well as any withdrawals, whether that's physical or psychological. When it comes to food, there's just no one substance that we've identified yet that's been found to replicate the same magnitude of euphoria or buzz or high that somebody gets off of a drug or from excessive alcohol use.

More than likely, it's the highly palatable flavors that our food environment has created, which we feel drawn to during times of stress, restricted eating, hunger, and other emotional distress. So this is a learned behavior to turn to those highly delicious and incredibly tasty foods, which can feel like an addiction for sure. ⁓

We're not gonna minimize that or pretend like that's not true. Ask anybody who struggles with binge eating and they'll tell you that it feels like an addiction. But it shouldn't be considered addictive like alcohol. I also find that this is extremely disempowering for people. The clients who I work with that are in this head space of I'm addicted to sugar or I'm addicted to food, they have a way harder time recovering

hovering from binge eating than those who don't use that type of language because once we assign the word addiction to it, it makes it feel like it's out of our control and it's something that we're just bound to struggle with the rest of our lives, which isn't true when it comes to food. Again, we don't have any evidence or at least not enough compelling evidence make that solid connection and say, yes, X ingredient causes addiction.

that language of addiction just makes it feel like I'm doomed. It's also just it just buddies up so easily, way too easily with then having a mentality of I'm never gonna be able to get past this because I'm addicted, right? So again, it's just really disempowering and not.

helpful and also not true. It's also unreasonable to expect that someone's gonna have complete abstinence from food. And I know it's not suggesting abstinence from all food, just trigger foods, but still, food is a human need. And at the end of the day, what if the food that they've decided they need to give up is the only one available to them for whatever reason? When their body needs food, are they supposed to just like...

I like, I'm addicted to it, so if I eat it right now, then I'm off the way. It's just, it's not the vibe. It's not how we approach binge eating recovery. But let's dig into it some more. To better understand the pros and cons of Over-Eaters Anonymous, let's first examine how it's set up. So as I mentioned, this is modeled off of AA, or Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so the 12 step process of over eaters anonymous is adapted directly from AA. So here's how they adapted the 12 steps. The first step is we admitted we were powerless to food, that our lives had become unmanageable. The second, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three is.

made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves and to other human beings the nature of our wrongs. Six, weren't entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.

Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would it injure them or others. 10, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.

12, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. Similar to AA, the emphasis is being on powerlessness over food. The need to draw on a higher power for strength and sanity and abstinence and making amends.

for any way that this has harmed others and then moving forward in service towards others who are struggling. So the main method behind Over-Eaters Anonymous, which I just mentioned, is abstinence. Specifically, each member chooses which trigger food they need to be abstinent from. Usually it's sugar or flour or carbs or whatever binge foods, or excuse me, compulsive overeating foods. Those two terms are used interchangeably.

⁓ Binge eating is the clinical term, so I'm probably going to use that more just because it's going to come out of my mouth more quickly. So the advice to stop overeating is...

Just don't eat it. mean, feel an extreme compulsion towards the food? Too bad, white knuckle it, man. Do whatever you gotta do to stop. If you need help with not eating the thing you said you wouldn't eat, tap into the higher power for help. That's it, good luck.

This is where I start to lose my cool. Do we honestly think that abstinence is realistic for most people struggling with overeating? Don't get me wrong, I know there's people who rave about OA, they found it to be incredibly helpful, they love the abstinence and the 12-step program, they found it to be ground-shaking for their life. Love that for them, that's awesome. There's about...

I'd say 99.99 % of the other people though who tried it and struggle with overeating and they've already tried abstinence, right? Like there's no way that the people walking into those doors have not tried the abstinence route before. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe I'm wrong. But that's why they need help, right? Because that didn't help, that didn't work for them.

Now, I know I understand that always more than that because we're adding on the support aspect in terms of like the meetings, the anonymity, the literature that they do, and then the higher power thing. But at its core, that really is in terms of like tools. That's the tool is just don't eat it. You know what I mean? There might be some little specific things that a sponsor recommends.

based on their experience, but none of this is coming from a evidence-based place.

Speaking of sponsors, in terms of who leads the OA meetings, I did have to reach out to my network, by the way, meaning my email list, and see if anyone was willing to answer a few questions of mine about OA, because I've never been myself, so maybe I should have said that in beginning. I've never been myself to an OA meeting, but I did want to hear from people who had and get some more insight into it. So for those who have attended, I did get a few responses, and according to one former OA member,

Quote, this program is run by members who volunteer to chair the meeting. Anyone who feels they're ready can. They don't have to be at any particular step to chair the meeting. Each group has their own home group member. Any OA member can go to any meeting they want, but usually belong to only one home group. All OA members are recovering or recovered overeaters slash under eaters, interesting.

At the meeting I attended, there was never professionals there guiding or teaching. I don't know of anywhere that there were. It's a members only group. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop overeating. So there you have it. The meetings are led by people who have attended the meetings and then feel ready to chair one. That's it, no training, no education in the field of behavior change, nutrition, eating disorders, none of that. Just I've been, I've

Conquered, now I lead. What could go wrong?

So with the sponsorship element, this is where to me, it gets a little bit reminiscent of a wellness focused multi-level marketing scheme. It's just that there's no money changing hands, right? There's no sense of like,

you're also gonna pay me in order to even be a part of this in the process, I'm making money and I make more money if you're under me, blah, blah. There's no money changing hands, right? But, similar to MLMs, there are previous members who will step into the role of mentorship or sponsorship.

According to a different previous OA member, sponsors were trained by their sponsors. Sponsors who had space for new sponsees identified themselves during meetings and people who needed a sponsor were encouraged to speak with one of the available sponsors to see if it was good fit. The role of the sponsor is to...

guide the mentee through the 12 steps and provide accountability where things easily go awry here is if the sponsor doesn't have the proper understanding of how to support someone with, let's be honest, probably an eating disorder, right? like imagine someone with an undiagnosed eating disorder walking into an OA meeting and they end up getting paired with someone who's like the,

We all have the same 24 hours in a no excuses. That's gonna be more damaging belittling rather uplifting and

So according to the few who responded to my request for more information, the previous OA members, engaging in a structured eating plan was left up to the individual with potential influence from their sponsor. So here's what one person had to say, quote, OA allowed members to define their own meal plan, usually with the help of the sponsor. there were some OA meetings and sponsors that did not believe in meal plans at all. They believed that working the 12 steps would naturally make your problems with food.

Go away, end quote. As we all know, many people, have different ideas in terms what's the best or the healthiest way to eat. mean, ask anybody in your workplace what they think is the healthiest diet and you're gonna get a huge variety of answers. Relying on your sponsor and what they think is best leaves one super vulnerable to that sponsor's extremely biased opinion.

Right, Another ex-member brought up that there was a gray sheet that gets passed around sometimes. She said it's...

really restrictive but not a lot of people use it. She said mainly it's all about like trying to abstain from the toxic behaviors. So whether it's purging, the behavior you're trying to abstain from is purging. Whether it's having too much sugar, then you're trying to abstain from sugar. There was no set bar for what it was. It was just up to the individual to decide whatever that abstinence meant for them.

So then there's this concept of the higher power. Members rely heavily on a higher power for overcoming their quote unquote addiction to food. Now, as a woman of faith myself, I have no qualms with being realistic about our limitations as humans and how we might need to look to a higher power for strength, right? However, the way this is being brought up is just all wrong.

When there's a pressure to rely on the higher power for not eating, we're now making eating a moral issue. The second we make it a moral issue, there's opportunity for guilt and shame to creep in. Listen to what this previous OA member had to say, quote, I did overeaters anonymous when I was in my early 20s. I think it kickstarted my food shame. To say I'm addicted to something I need gave

all of my food a good and bad status. Then when I ate the bad food, I would feel guilty and shame. It also makes your eating habits a moral dilemma. Also, since your higher power is being sought to help you with your addiction, the loss of self-control can equal a break in the relationship with God. that's a huge issue that I take with this type of approach.

is your relationship with food and your relationship with God, they can be connected in a way that you're praying and asking for clarity and peace and wisdom and how to overcome something that's a struggle in your life, right? But doesn't mean that you shouldn't get any more tools beyond that, you know, or that you're...

Prayer is the only tool, right? Like then that just makes that set somebody up to feel like if they Binge or if they ate the food they're supposed to be abstinent from like the sugar at their kids birthday party or something. ⁓ Well, I just didn't pray hard enough then or I feel so guilty because I let God down like that's just

we don't need to bring more guilt and more shame that's even deeper because now we're making it about our relationship with God. Like that's not helpful to the individual struggling with their relationship with food. Yes, absolutely bring God into it. Ask him for wisdom, ask him for peace, ask him for help, and it's okay to then continue on.

and find tools that the people who are created in God's image can provide for you with the wisdom that maybe he's imparted to them as well and then they can help you. But you know what I mean? It shouldn't be this like, just me and God and if I can't figure it out that means I'm not relying on God enough. That just seems like a recipe for disaster.

So what can over-eaters anonymous help with then? I wanna take a look at the different things that people often turn to OA for and see if maybe it truly could be helpful from my lens obviously as a registered dietitian. So would OA support weight loss? Let's talk about that. OA does not claim to be a program for weight loss. However, due to the nature of it, a lot of people do end up going into it with weight loss in mind. Whether someone will.

lose weight during their time at OA is going to have less to do with OA and more to do with any calorie deficit they naturally fall into as a result of addressing their overeating. they would have to first of all be going into those meetings with a history of being in a calorie surplus from the overeating. Then they would need to find those meetings are helpful for reducing the overeating.

then you need to achieve a deficit from now reducing the overeating in order to lose weight. So it's not necessarily the OA itself that's like helping them achieve the deficit or find a way to get to the deficit. It's more of like a, yeah, this could be a side effect if you do find OA to be helpful for you and you had gained excess weight from the overeating.

So let's talk about binge eating a little bit more. Would OA help with binge

let's start with like the positives and the benefits, right? First of all, meetings are everywhere. You can do them online or in person and they don't cost time. That's awesome. Free and accessible. We love those words.

For some, being in a room with people who get it is extremely validating as well, just that community aspect, the accountability aspect. ⁓ We see this as being extremely instrumental in our clients that we work with inside of Nourished and Free the program, not the podcast, but the program, that group component.

is very freeing for them to know that they're not the only ones, especially with something that does have so much shame wrapped around it. It's very helpful. There's also an accelerated sense of growth because somebody might put to words or put words to something that you haven't known how to put words to before. And now all of a sudden, all these pieces are clicking because somebody else was able to describe what you're going through in ways you've never been able to or

they asked a question that you didn't realize you had and now you're getting answers for it. So it really can accelerate the and be incredibly freeing. And then having steps, having sponsors in a way, the rituals that can give some sense of order, which some people find really calming.

But there's some really big downsides here. The abstinence from trigger foods is mirroring dieting and can actually intensify the food noise, especially when there's a moral element at play, like relying on a higher power to resist food. Here's the thing, avoidance or abstinence is a known trigger for binge eating.

It is not a recommended form of treatment considering it would make it worse rather than better. So this is really like my issue with this program that I see and why I've heard so many horror stories and seen so many people come to us after OA is because the very thing making their binge eating happen in the first place is what's being encouraged or being encouraged to do more of

I'm also just, like the spiritual framing of it, I can see the heart behind that and I can see how it is really helpful for some people in terms of like the 12 step model leaning hard on the idea of powerlessness and relying on the higher power and everything. But that could also be alienating or even shaming if that's not your world view or if you're not on the same page as the people in your.

specific as I stated before, it can create friction in one's relationship with God or their higher power of choice if the eating doesn't stop, right? Making them feel unworthy of that higher power's love and attention and protection.

And then of course with OA there's a lack of professional guidance here. There's no requirement for a professional to be in the room. Sponsors are not trained clinicians. Their advice can range from supportive to accidentally helpful to flat out harmful and damaging. And that's a big problem. can, I mean that's honestly really irresponsible in my opinion to.

lead a group of individuals who are struggling with what can very easily be argued as an eating disorder if you don't have training in eating disorders and you don't have the proper credentials to treat that illness. the moralization of food is huge here too. When eating a cookie becomes a relapse, then the guilt and the shame.

follow close behind. Guilt and shame are hard emotions to experience. They're negative, right? And we don't want to feel that. So when we're experiencing feelings we don't like and we don't want to feel anymore, we look for ways to cope. If food is the number one coping mechanism that you have at that point, which it probably is if you're going to overeaters anonymous, this only makes the original problem worse instead of better.

With the food moralization, we now feel guilt and shame for eating bad food, which then we need relief from. We need relief from that guilt and shame. So then we turn to food to get relief. Now we've got guilt and shame for eating bad food and the cycle just continues.

So yeah, I mean, there's like a lot of flaws with this. In my opinion, again, I know, I know. I hear myself too. I know I'm being harsh. I know there people who really, really love it and I wanna give space for that and I wanna give allowance that that can be true. I absolutely know that can be true and the Lord works in mysterious ways, right? But in general, from my position as a dietitian who works in this field, has a lot of training in it.

This is just not gold standard.

Speaking of gold standard, what is the research on OA? Is there any? So I looked into this, it looks like the research on OA is pretty limited and low quality. There's not rigorous studies or at least not experimental studies. And so we don't really know if you put OA up against your traditional eating disorder treatment, how it compares, because nobody's done that experiment before. Most of the success stories we see are anecdotal.

and even those are mixed. Some members credit OA for decades of sobriety from their trigger foods, where others describe cycles of relapse, shame, leaving the program altogether, being in a way worse position than they were in the first place. Here's a couple of quotes from email correspondence that I had.

Quote, I did not find OA very helpful. AA seemed to make a lot more sense because that's where the original textbook for the steps came from and all you have to do there is stop drinking where OA was very vague and people still have to eat. OA was all very vague and confusing because it was so broad. End quote. And then another gal, quote, honestly, I haven't found anything that has helped until I landed on your podcast.

It reinforces the way I should be thinking about food in my day-to-day life. podcast reaffirms a healthy mindset towards food. quote. Thank you, I love that feedback so much. Honestly, when I saw that, it made my day. So thank you for sharing that and you know who you are you're listening to

So to wrap this up with just some quick and dirty opinions, because that's what you came here for, About over-eaters, anonymous and criticisms. The sponsorship, not a fan. Those sponsors can be compassionate mentors or coercive shaming taskmasters. Who's to say? Who's to say who you'll end up with and if they have any helpful advice or not, because they weren't trained to actually help somebody overcome binge eating.

The food restriction, the diet rule is the just abstinence, right? The whole plan really is just don't eat it. If dieting didn't work before for compulsive overeating, AKA binge eating, and by dieting I mean just not eating why would it work now? Because we're introducing a sense of morality, the higher power? Honestly, no, I think that actually makes things worse.

And if we're gonna copy paste a substance abuse model onto food, that's ignoring the fact completely that food is necessary for survival. It's just a different bucket. It's a whole different ball game. You might be able to ignore a specific food like cupcakes or a specific food group like grains for a long time, but you will be driven towards it because we are biologically wired at

birth to be drawn to food. We have hunger specific hormones. We don't have alcohol specific hormones, right? We don't have narcotics specific hormones. We don't have the things chemically in place in our body to seek alcohol or narcotics like we do food. So it's just a different ballgame. We can't approach it the same way.

As I mentioned, it's not supported by the research, no scientific backing for this. I did see in my ⁓ look on PubMed there was a review that suggested it should be considered as a treatment for binge eating disorder, but again, when you look at the references of that review and where they're getting their opinion from, it's not quality or experimental research.

We don't really know if it's a long-term solution for binge eating. My sense is it's not.

Another criticism of mine is we're really reinforcing eating disorder patterns by having restriction and shame and black and white thinking ⁓ inflated throughout this process, which is just a fertile ground for worsening eating disorders. And then this labeling as well of being a compulsive overeater or addicted to food. just, I feel like that creates shame, not healing. That makes somebody feel

powerless as I've mentioned before and I don't care for that. I want the people that we work with to feel empowered to change, not disempowered by the lack of their ability to change.

And then the daily meetings, the call, I didn't really talk much about this, but there's meetings, calls, journaling, the service that might potentially be really all consuming for whoever's doing it and too much of a commitment.

I also just wanna do like a quick blip too that this is not gonna be helpful for someone with a trauma history, which we know that there's a really big overlap of eating disorders and trauma. So this is just not gonna hit. It's not gonna hit. so if OA is not the best thing for binge eating or emotional eating recovery.

and let's be real for most people, it's not. Then what other options do exist? Thankfully, there's some approaches that are both empowering and evidence-based. And then I also want to bring up a couple of other options that you might hear ⁓ in the same conversation as OA. And I want to do a quick little touch point on those. So the first thing I'll bring up is eating disorders anonymous. This is very similar. It's a 12-step program. But instead of the abstinence, it emphasizes balance and variety.

and moderation rather than, like I said, the abstinent.

Instead of labeling food as good or bad, the EDA encourages members to explore emotional health and self-acceptance. And we love that here. It's far less food, policy than OA, far less shamy. Usually too, I'll see the EDA is connected to treatment centers or involves eating disorder professionals in some capacity. Not always, but usually, which is much, much better.

And then actually a lot of people who have done OA have also tried food addicts anonymous or F, I think people will refer to it as FA, I will say I had somebody who had responded to my email who had done FA, EDA and OA. And what she said about FA was really interesting. She said, quote, FA is much stricter than OA. It's easier to figure out what the group's idea of.

however it looks like, but it's also less forgiving. People who struggle tend to give up and leave FA pretty quickly versus OA. And then here's where things are really scary. According to FA's definition of abstinence,

weighed and measured meals with nothing in between, no flour, no sugar, and avoidance of any individual binge foods for at least 90 days.

Yeah, weight loss is also very much a part of the culture of FA. In FA especially, you are encouraged to share exact numbers around your weight loss, end quote. So this can exacerbate shame-based eating, right? Like hopefully we're seeing that already and I don't need to explain that much. It's also gonna bring up hopelessness and really worsen the compulsions. But if you're like, no, I need you to explain this more, please feel free by the way to always leave me feedback. ⁓

I really value clear communication and I try my best to communicate well on these episodes, but if something is unclear and you want me to follow up on it in a future episode, feel free to go to the show notes and leave me some feedback. There's a link for anonymous feedback and you can let me know whatever you want me to clarify or if you have ideas for future episodes.

Okay, so then OA versus eating disorder therapy, this is where the gold standard care comes in. Approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectal behavioral therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, weight neutral aligned therapy, medical nutrition therapy. These are all backed by research and tailored to your unique needs. With professional treatment, you're not left relying on your sponsor's opinions and whatever their biased thoughts are about the best diet.

You're guided by trained clinicians.

And then OA versus intuitive eating, if we're to put those two things together, then we've got, you know, on one end we're declaring an all out war on food in OA, whereas with intuitive eating, we're rebuilding trust with the body. It teaches you to reconnect with your hunger and fullness. It drops the obsession and the labels and the food rules and makes peace with all foods rather than trying to do the whole abstinence thing.

In our experience, that's what actually helps quite the food noise in the long run is when you are able to tolerate the food instead of trying to stiff arm the food.

And then something like OA, I mean, that's just like at the end of the day, really one size fits all model. But if you were to do something like work with a binge eating dietician, you're gonna get a lot more personalized advice based on your story, your history, your health, your preferences, your goals. And unlike a sponsor, a dietician is gonna bring actual training and nutrition and behavior change, at least if it's someone like me, like there's gonna be a lot of.

psychology of behavior change and nutrition and all of that being worked into your work together that again is really specific to you and your story.

So overall, mean, Overeaters Anonymous, it might provide community and comfort for some, especially those who thrive in a highly structured spiritual environment. But from a dietitian's perspective, OA has some serious flaws. It reinforces a restrictive mentality which can fuel instead of resolve overeating.

It casts a large net of moralizing around food, which once again can fuel binge eating and overeating instead of solve it. And we're risking worsening those cycles as a result of both of those things.

if you're struggling with binge eating, emotional overeating or food noise, more empowering and sustainable paths do exist. Doing evidence-based therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy, working with trained professionals, doing a weight neutral, intuitive eating slash more mindful eating type of

approaches, that's the route you're going to want to go down. And again, it's not a one size fits all. That's where that clinician help is going to be really important.

Food is not an enemy to abstain from. a need. It can also be a joy. And you can learn to trust yourself around it again.

That's exactly why I created Nourished and Free because you should be able to nourish yourself with the fuel that food provides and do it in a way that's free from the spiraling or from binge eating or the food guilt. Nourished and Free is a coaching program built to quiet food noise, stop the binge restrict cycles and rebuild trust with your body. ⁓

health mindset coach, masters in health psychology, lots of experience in eating disorders. And then we also have a body image therapist on staff as well who has a ton of experience in eating disorder work. And we've also got a community of women who get it. So if you're looking for that support and accountability that OA would provide, you'll have that here as well. But you'll also have tools that are evidence-based, gold standard.

for the struggles that you're going through and that are specific to you and personalized to your situation.

Instead of food rules and abstinence, we use a psychology-backed approach that actually lasts.

Our clients see an average of a 92 % decrease in binge eating and those results last. When we check in on them months later, years later, they still maintain their results and that I feel is what really matters. We don't wanna just help you while you're working with us. We also wanna be sure that this is gonna last in long run for you.

and it's sustainable.

Because the goal isn't just to not eat the cookie. The goal is to feel free enough to eat the cookie if you want it, but also have the freedom to say, actually, I'm not in the mood if you don't. And if you decide you do want it, to have just the right amount and then move on without spiraling. No guilt, no shame, no regret.

You can take a look at how our process works for free if you'd like. I recommend going to the show notes. I'll have a link to go take my free mini course. It's called the Binge Free Blueprint and I'll walk how we do things inside of Nourished and Free in more detail. So bottom line, OA, Overeaters Anonymous, it may feel supportive for a few, but for many it causes more harm than good. I hope you enjoyed this episode and don't forget to leave a rating and review if you did and we'll catch you on the next episode.