Eating more will likely help you reduce binge eating.
This feels counterintuitive and is certainly not what the weight loss industry or the medical community typically advises, so I know this recommendation can feel very scary.
The weight loss industry provides “tricks” to reduce binge eating, usually focusing on how to limit consumption of certain foods. However, rather than helping navigate binge eating, it often fuels and perpetuates binge eating. Science has taught us that dietary restriction is a risk factor for developing an eating disorder, including binge eating. Dietary restriction also maintains the eating disorder–in other words, a restrictive diet keeps the disorder going.
Binge eating can cause significant distress to those who are experiencing it, so understandably, you would do almost anything to stop it.
First, we need to normalize binge eating. Most humans experience eating episodes related to emotions, as eating can be a common way we cope with and regulate emotions. If you have sensory and neurological differences, including anxiety or ADHD, eating can be a useful tool to help you feel more comfortable.
We hear harmful messages in our culture about binge eating: that it means something negative about us, or that we “have no will power or we are not disciplined enough”. Of course, we then internalize these messages, meaning we believe these untrue messages about ourselves, further disconnecting us from self.
Let’s take a closer look at why eating more helps to reduce binge eating.
Our brain’s primary job is to keep us alive. We need food to survive. Most of us experience pleasure from eating (That’s our brain’s way to ensure that we eat!).
If your meal gets delayed for some reason, you feel really hungry, often leading to feeling “hangry” (hungry & angry–that grumpy feeling we get when we’ve gone too long without food)-our body’s cue to eat. Consequently, you might eat quickly and possibly more than usual. This is our body’s nifty mechanism to keep us alive.
Many people who experience binge eating try to limit their food intake or the types of food they typically binge on. This makes perfect sense given the messages about food in our culture. But dietary restriction is eating less food than your body needs. An example of dietary restriction may be “I am going to eat out for lunch, so I’ll skip or have a ‘light’ breakfast”. This simple act, which our culture often rewards, sets our body’s drive up to alert us to eat.
Dietary restriction is a key feature in what initiates and sustains eating disorders.
Herman and Polivy coined the term dietary restraint in the 1970s. It suggests that when human eating behavior is under cognitive control, it reduces the ability to read internal satiety cues.
In other words, simply thinking about restricting food types and amounts can lead us to eat past fullness. Dietary restraint is the key feature of EVERY DIET. And dietary restraint is a significant risk factor for developing an eating disorder.
What can be done?
Many clients who experience binge eating also experience dietary restriction and restraint–the natural reaction is often to focus on eliminating binge eating by using more dietary restriction and restraint. Again, this makes sense given diet culture and our medical system. However, it often maintains the eating disorder.
One of the first steps in my work with clients is to gradually reduce dietary restraint and restriction. I can understand that this can feel very scary.
In sessions, we explore your personal story and understand where you learned about dietary restriction and restraint. We then consider if it makes sense to approach things differently.
We do work on reducing binges, but that typically comes later in treatment. First, dismantling the restriction and restraint is needed to reduce binge eating.
If you want to learn more about binge eating, I highly recommend this book. Additionally, Decolonizing Wellness is an excellent resource. If you would like to learn more about how I work with clients struggling with binge eating, the first step is to schedule an initial consultation. I would love to hear from you.
