Binging can be an extremely sensitive topic. The experience of binge eating is very individual and will look different for each person but my hope for this post is to share my experiences so that you will not feel alone. And that it can be helpful for at least one person.
My experience with Binge Eating.
Binge eating disorder is something that I struggled with from a young age. I grew up in a household with a single parent where unfortunately we were left to fend for ourselves a lot of the time and eating became a reliable friend and enjoyable pass time for me. I would eat in secret all afternoon until my dad got home from work. This is the kind of binge eating which lead me to weigh almost 300 lbs.
I have also experienced the kind of binge eating which was induced by over-restriction, over-exercising and falling in to vicious cycles of dieting and binging. For the purposes of this post I'm going to focus on this type of binging as it can be a common hurdle that those of us who are working on losing weight.
Reasons for binge eating
Overeating Processed foods (Trigger foods) Binging can be triggered for some people by eating delicious, highly processed foods. Foods like potato chips, cookies - things that have a high fat level combined with sugar or salt which makes the food extremely palatable and difficult to stop eating.
The danger here is when we start to associate these binges on these foods with our own lack of willpower. This is not a willpower issue. Let's talk about the food industry for a minute. This is a billion dollar industry where experts are literally FABRICATING these foods to make them as addictive as possible. "Lays - betcha can't eat just one."
Food companies that want to make money off of you by making you eat and subsequently purchase larger portions of their food. Don't think for a minute that it is your lack of willpower that causes you to overeat on these foods.
Tips on how to stop:
- Don't keep the foods that are difficult for you to portion control in the house.
- If the food is in the house due to your partner, kids or roommate - find a way to have it out of sight. This could be asking your spouse to store those junk food snacks in a different cupboard where it is out of your sight. The idea is if you're not tempted every time you walk in to the kitchen, you won't exhaust yourself "resisting temptations" all day.
- Buy smaller portions of the food - buy only as much as you will eat in one serving. There's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a portion of junk food but when it comes to binge eating, the context can matter. Rather than eating a tub of ice cream alone on your sofa, if you're craving ice cream, meet up with a friend to go out for a gelato.
Binging due to over restriction, actual hunger:
After losing 100lbs in 2012, I spent the following year struggling with binge eating and yo-yo dieting. I had taken up running and had been under fuelling myself eating a low-calorie vegan diet and my body was screaming out for more calories. In the evenings I would be binging on whatever "healthy" foods I had in the house like oatmeal, raisins, and dates. During extended periods of weight loss is that our AMAZING bodies realize what is happening as a famine and will do whatever it can to signal to our subconscious minds that we need to eat as much as we can of whatever we can get our hands on so that we can plump up our fat reserves.
Obviously this causes a problem when there's a disagreement between our conscious brain (I want to lose weight) and our unconscious brain (we are starving, EAT MORE) After binging, it's typical to wake up the next day and consciously tell ourselves that we are not good enough, that we need to increase our willpower.
This type of thinking only makes you feel more unworthy and that you need to double down on the diet. You swear to diet even harder from now on - and the same cycle repeats.
Tips on how to stop:
- If you have overeaten one day, do not try to overcompensate for it the next day. This is a slippery slope for falling in to disordered eating patterns. If you were legitimately hungry, you've done your body well by eating a bit extra. Keep calm and carry on.
- Notice patterns in your eating. Do you find yourself doing a great job staying on track during the week but end up going hog wild on the weekend? Maybe you need to relax your diet a bit - if you increase the amount of calories you're eating each day during the week, you won't feel as restricted and feel the need to overeat on the weekends.
- The type of diet that each person chooses to eat is highly individual and I totally respect each and every person who is paleo, keto, vegan, carnivore, whatever it may be. But if you are having trouble eating in a consistent way while trying to follow a diet which cuts out an entire food group or large set of food types - please just consider whether it is the right way of eating for you. You should enjoy your diet and not feel overly restricted.
Emotional / Behavioural reasons (Bad Habits)
This type of overeating is basically any time you're eating over your calorie goal when you're not hungry. It can be triggered by boredom, anxiety, loneliness, sadness. Those evenings when you're just going back and forth from the sofa to the fridge.
Tips on how to stop
- Avoid labelling foods as "good" or "bad". Thinking that a food is prohibited can increase the desire to binge on that 'bad' food simply because you're not allowed to have it. It can lead to all or nothing thinking. Well, I've eaten the cookies, I may as well just go all in and order a pizza for dinner too. It is not necessary to eat only nutritious food 100% of the time.
- Stay busy in the evenings if this is the time you struggle with overeating. Pick up a new hobby where you need to use your hands and you can't snack mindlessly.
- Reserve your willpower for the grocery store. As we know, willpower is a finite resource. Save your willpower for when you're in the grocery store and stick to buying the foods on your shopping list. Use this time to plan ahead and find healthier versions of the snacks you love which won't prompt you to go crazy overeating. Fruits for sweet cravings or popcorn is another great one.
To end, here's a quote that's been floating around this subreddit for years.
"Just because you have one flat tire does not mean you need to slash the other 3."
That's to say, just because you go off plan for one meal it doesn't mean you have blown it and should go ahead and eat all your favourite foods.
The most important advice when it comes to binge eating is to never give up trying to stop. Keep working on doing better.
If you made it all the way through, thank you for reading! I originally wrote this all down as a script for a youtube video I wanted to make, if anyone wants to check out the video on my channel, I go by the same username over there.
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