Sign up for free

PDF Summary:Never Binge Again, by

Book Summary: Learn the key points in minutes.

Below is a preview of the Shortform book summary of Never Binge Again by Glenn Livingston. Read the full comprehensive summary at Shortform.

1-Page PDF Summary of Never Binge Again

Do you have a behavior that you rationally know is better for you, but you find it too hard to maintain? Do you want to lose weight; stop using social media; exercise more; work harder and longer? Do you feel your self-destructive indulgent self feels so powerful you can’t stop it?

Never Binge Again presents a wonderful mental framework to help solve these problems. It’s directed toward binge-eating and weight loss, but the concepts are easily analogized to any other impulse or addiction you want to control.

(continued)...

Pig Squeals

If you’ve tried to lose weight before, you’ve almost certainly felt urges to break your food vows. First you say, “You’ve been eating well for a week, so let’s just have one cheat day.”

Then you say, “Well since you’ve had one cheat day, that proves you’re weak. You should feel bad about yourself. So let’s go back to our binge eating!”

In the past, you would have thought of these as a natural, rational part of yourself that needed to be listened to.

Now that you’ve isolated the fat-thinking self to a separate entity, the Pig, you can recognize all such urges as Pig Squeals. These are complaints, feelings, and impulses to get you to binge again. Squeals are all attempts to destroy your goals so the Pig can get what it wants (this is why the Pig cannot be tolerated and is owed nothing but contempt).

Since you’ve committed NEVER to binge again, any thought or impulse to binge again must be coming from the Pig.

Create a Food Plan and Follow it 100%

A Food Plan defines rules that you want to follow for the rest of your life. They should be 100% explicit, such that if you showed the plan to 10 people, all 10 would unanimously say whether you violated the plan or not.

The plan consists of foods, drinks, and behaviors of these types:

  • Nevers (you will never do this again)
  • Always (you will always do this)
  • Unrestricted (you can have an unlimited amount of this)
  • Conditionals (you can have these under certain explicit conditions)

After you have a Food Plan, you need to follow it 100%. Any violation of the Plan by even 1% counts as a Binge. Any doubt or impulse to deviate from the Plan comes entirely from the Pig.

Tactics

Before you binge, consciously weigh the benefits and the costs of indulging. Make a list of what you gain from indulging and violating your Food Plan, and what you gain by following it.

  • You will most likely find that the rational gains by following your plan (eg “I want to be confident about my body”)are far more important than those by indulging (which usually consist of “it tastes good”).

Weigh yourself everyday. This gives continuous feedback and lets you make fast corrections before you go off track.

  • Think about how you drive. Do you open your eyes for a second, adjust the wheel, then close your eyes for 5 seconds hoping for the best? Obviously not.

Keep a list of Pig Squeals, or justifications from the Pig to violate your plan. For each one that deserves a response, write your justification for why the Squeal is a terrible reason to violate your plan.

If you make a mistake, don’t be ashamed. Forgive yourself. Treat yourself like a child who’s genuinely trying to accomplish something important. If your 5 year old daughter wants to learn to ride a bike but falls off, would you say, “OK, this is a sign that it’ll never work. You should never even try again, it’s just hopeless.“

Want to learn the rest of Never Binge Again in 21 minutes?

Unlock the full book summary of Never Binge Again by signing up for Shortform .

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being 100% comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you don't spend your time wondering what the author's point is.
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.

Here's a preview of the rest of Shortform's Never Binge Again PDF summary:

Read full PDF summary

PDF Summary Introducing the Pig

...

The Pig is worthy of permanent rejection. It’s repeatedly caused you to act against your best judgment. It deserves NO love and NO compassion. It will dominate you if you show it any mercy.

  • Would you tolerate a friend who repeatedly sabotaged your plans, instilled doubt in your mind, laughed at your goals, and wished for your failure? Of course not.

Dealing with the Pig isn’t like nurturing a wounded animal back to health. It’s not your inner child, or a cute little pet. It’s more like caging an aggressive pit bull. The dog must respect and obey you. This is not a game of mercy—it’s a game of unbreakable control and domination.

It’s almost impossible to “love yourself thin”—certain impulses are too strong to restrain when they’re given even a tiny opening. You’ve tried to indulge yourself in the past, but it hasn’t worked to meet your weight goals—isn’t it worth trying something different?

Here’s how you can separate out the Pig from the rest of you:

  • You have dreams and aspirations, but the Pig lives only to Binge.
  • You want to live life to its fullest. The Pig doesn’t care about the consequences to your health or happiness—it just wants to get its...
Read full PDF summary

PDF Summary Create a Food Plan

...

  • For example: I’ll always drink one glass of water when I wake up. I’ll always write down what I’ll eat tomorrow. I’ll always try to eat a bowl of vegetables every day.

Pig Squeal: You can’t always do anything! There are always exceptions! So it’s better to just not plan for them!

Just like Nevers, there are plenty of things we Always do. We Always brush our teeth before sleeping. We always show up to work when we can. We Always pee in the toilet (when there’s one available).

  • Would you tell a child, “Listen, there’s NO hope of always brushing your teeth before you sleep. You might as well just give up and accept you’ll be a failure your whole life.”

Unrestricted

What food and drink will you permit without restriction?

These are usually healthy goto foods you feel good about eating, like leafy greens, fruits, water. (Shortform note: You might be concerned about the idea of not having restriction on certain items. Even when these things are unrestricted, you would likely get tired of eating it before it becomes anywhere near harmful to you.)

Conditionals

What food and drink will you permit only at certain times or under certain conditions?

**Be...

Read full PDF summary

PDF Summary Weigh Yourself Everyday

...

Pig Squeal: Congratulations! You’re 5 pounds down! Take it easy—it’s time to binge!

Response: I committed to following my food plan 100%. It doesn’t matter how much progress I’ve made, I’m following the plan. Also, if I haven’t reached my goal yet, I can’t take it easy.

Pig Squeal: You gained weight! You’re pathetic! Just give up and be content with being fat. You’re obviously never going to make progress.

Response: First, recent factors might have caused my weight to change [it can vary by up to 5 pounds based on your diet.] Next, even if I’ve had a setback, the strong thing to do is to get back on course.

Read full PDF summary

What Our Readers Say

This is the best summary of Never Binge Again I've ever read. I learned all the main points in just 20 minutes.

Learn more about our summaries →

PDF Summary Perfection and Making Mistakes

...

  • To believe otherwise is to invite the slightest opening for the Pig, and the Pig will take a mile.
  • After each binge, you should believe that you’re ready to renew your vows again and dedicated to never binge again.
  • No matter how many times it takes, you must continue to believe that you will Never binge again. Over time you will get stronger, better at hearing Pig Squeals, and have weaker cravings.

Binges occur most often because you failed to hear the Pig’s Squeal, not a problem with the food plan. So reflect carefully before thinking about changing the plan.

Pig Squeals on Mistakes

Pig Squeal: Well, you’ve violated one food rule, so what’s the point of following the others? It’s either 100% or 0%. Give in now, and you’ll do better tomorrow.

Response: If you fail by 1%, don’t take it as an excuse to fail by 100%. If you take a bite of a Never food, does it make sense to go out and buy a box of donuts and a pound of chocolate bars, and go to town?

If you jaywalk and violate a law, does it make sense for you to then steal a car, because if you’ve broken one law you might as well break them all? Of course not.

If an Olympic archer misses...

Read full PDF summary

PDF Summary More Pig Squeals

...

Pig Squeal: I’m not an idiot. I’m in your brain, so I’m just as smart as you are. You need to listen to my intelligent arguments for Binging!

Response: You must treat the Pig like an idiot. It uses your intelligence for destructive purposes only. It is NOT thinking for the best of you.

(Shortform note: consider treating the Pig like it’s a sociopath whose only goal is to manipulate you to do what it wants. You don’t want to be made the better of, do you?)

Pig Squeal: I might not get you now, but I’ll get you later! You’ll slip up at some time, like Thanksgiving, or Tom’s birthday party, or when your boss yells at you!

Response: The easy way to never binge again is to never binge now—at all times.

The difference between that attitude and the “one day at a time” attitude is that the latter implies powerlessness—“all I can control is today.” The former is power: “I Never Binge Now therefore I will Never Binge Again.”

Pig Squeal Journal

Because your Pig doesn’t need to be rationalized with, you don’t have to keep a Pig Squeal Journal. If you recognize the Squeal, you can just ignore it.

But writing down Pig Squeals might make...

Read full PDF summary

PDF Summary Troubleshooting

...

You do NOT need to be comfortable to stick to your food plan. There will be times where you feel uncomfortable. Your Pig must know it will NEVER consider this time to be Binging opportunities.

Just because you’re uncomfortable does NOT mean you will die. Your body is used to binging, and if you suddenly take away its Food High food, it’ll think you’re starving. You are not starving. Even if you ate zero calories, it would take weeks for you to starve to death.

You have greater ability to tolerate discomfort than you think. You need to want it enough.

  • Here’s a thought exercise: picture someone you love dearly—your child, spouse, parent, or pet. Now think of a Never food. Now imagine that there’s a kidnapper watching this person at all times. If you ever eat your Never food again, the kidnapper will abduct that person and you’ll never hear from this person again. The ONLY way to keep this person safe is to abstain from that Never food again. What would you do?
  • It’s a no-brainer—you’d easily avoid the Never food, because the consequences are so bad. This is the extent of your ability to tolerate discomfort.

That said, humans seek sustenance when 1)...

Read full PDF summary

Why are Shortform Summaries the Best?

We're the most efficient way to learn the most useful ideas from a book.

Cuts Out the Fluff

Ever feel a book rambles on, giving anecdotes that aren't useful? Often get frustrated by an author who doesn't get to the point?

We cut out the fluff, keeping only the most useful examples and ideas. We also re-organize books for clarity, putting the most important principles first, so you can learn faster.

Always Comprehensive

Other summaries give you just a highlight of some of the ideas in a book. We find these too vague to be satisfying.

At Shortform, we want to cover every point worth knowing in the book. Learn nuances, key examples, and critical details on how to apply the ideas.

3 Different Levels of Detail

You want different levels of detail at different times. That's why every book is summarized in three lengths:

1) Paragraph to get the gist
2) 1-page summary, to get the main takeaways
3) Full comprehensive summary and analysis, containing every useful point and example

Sign up for free book