316: Why Restricting Before An Event Makes Things Worse

Chris Sandel: Hey! If you want access to the transcripts, the show notes, and the links talked about as part of this episode, you can head to www.seven-health.com/316.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I’m your host, Chris Sandel. I’m a nutritionist and a coach and an eating disorder expert, and I help people to fully recover.

Before we get on with today’s show, I just want to mention that I’m taking on new clients. If you have been living with an eating disorder, irrespective of how long, whether it’s been a year, whether it’s been many decades, I would love to help you reach a place of full recovery. I know full recovery may sound like a stretch at this place and may sound like a fantasy, but it’s what I help people to achieve. And I would love to help you get there as well.

So if you’re interested in this, you can send an email to info@seven-health.com and put ‘coaching’ in the subject line, and then I can get back to you with the details about working together and we can have a conversation about what that would look like. So info@seven-health.com and put ‘coaching’ in the subject line.

00:01:19

Restricting in anticipation of an event

On with today’s show. This one has come about – we actually had a group coaching call this week as part of my programme, and this was one of the questions that came up. Obviously, it was Thanksgiving last week, or at least it was at the point that I’m recording this, and the question was around event restriction.

I think this is a really common thing in recovery, or when living with an eating disorder probably more accurately, and this is the “I’ve been invited to an event.” It could be a wedding, it could be a dinner, it could be some event where there is going to be more food than usual or different food than usual or I’m going to be around different people when I’m eating. There’s this particular event that I’ve been invited to, and what often happens is there’s this restriction that happens in anticipation of that event.

While maybe it would’ve been useful for this to go out prior to Thanksgiving, we’re getting into the holiday season, so it’s likely that there is going to be lots of events that come up over the next month where there may be this temptation to restrict in advance.

But I would say that this is an episode that is going to be evergreen, because there’s going to be events that come up irrespective of what time of year it is. And especially if you’re starting to do more pro-recovery things and you’re starting to challenge yourself more, there are going to be more situations where you do say yes to that invitation to go to dinner with a friend, or yes to that work function that you usually avoid going to.

So I want to talk a little bit about event restriction today and why it occurs and what you may do instead and see what happens when you run this different experiment of doing things differently.

00:03:12

Reasons for restricting before an event

I think the first place to start with this is to look at, what is the intention with restricting in anticipation of an upcoming event? There can be lots of different reasons that this occurs, and you can reflect on this for yourself. If this is something that you do, if you have an event coming up and you restrict, thinking about why you do that restriction.

From working with clients for a really long time and having many of these conversations around it, there are a number of reasons why people say they do it. One is “I’m trying to balance out the amount of energy that I have coming in. If I’m trying to keep my energy below a certain amount or within a certain band, then I’m trying to manage that with the anticipation that I’m going to eat more at this event, so I need to restrict more in advance of that so that I still come out at the same general level that I come out every day.”

If I think about it from that perspective, that’s still a very eating disorder way of viewing this. That’s not a very pro-recovery way of viewing it, but that’s one of the things that people may say.

Another thing that is very common is “If I restrict in advance, I’m going to then be able to enjoy that event more than I otherwise would.” There’s this idea that by doing this restriction – and when I say restriction, it could actually be restriction or it could be “I’m increasing my exercise as a way of compensating.” So it’s not just about restriction; it’s getting into a lower-energy state prior to this event with the anticipation that there’s going to be more energy coming in at that event. So by doing this restriction, the belief is ”When I get to that event, I’m going to have more freedom. I’m going to feel more safe to be able to eat more food. It’s going to be a more relaxing experience by doing it this way. I’m going to enjoy the food more.

I think this is a really common one, the fear that “I’m going to get to that meal, I’m not going to be hungry, and I’m not going to enjoy it in the way that I hope.” I think so often, what happens with an eating disorder, because there is so much restriction, because there is so much avoiding of eating when really you need to be eating, it creates this food being on a pedestal. You want to have the most incredible, enjoyable experience any time that you eat, so you’re trying to do things, or the eating disorder is convincing you of all these different things that are going to make that the most heightened experience and the most enjoyable experience.

So often, clients are like “I need to get everything done first, and then I can eat because then I’ll be absolutely most relaxed in that situation, whereas if I’m not, then I’m going to be thinking about this thing and that thing.” There’s always this goal of “How can I truly, absolutely maximise my enjoyment of that meal?”, and that’s often what I think is guiding this event restriction piece.

There could be other reasons that I’ve missed. Have a think about it for you, and if there’s anything I’ve missed, you can add that to it.

00:06:40

What actually happens when you restrict before an event

I want you now to reflect on what actually happens. If you’ve done this before, so you’ve had an event coming up and you’ve restricted and then you’ve gone to the event, you can reflect on, how does it actually go? What actually happens in that event?

Typically, what I find is that it doesn’t work in the way that people anticipate that it’s going to work. As I said, the feeling is “If I do this restriction, then when I get to the event, there’s going to be less anxiety, there’s going to be more freedom, I’m going to feel more calm, I’m going to be able to truly enjoy that food to a degree that I wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise.” But what happens when I speak to people and they’ve done this is actually, when they get to the event, there’s high amounts of anxiety. It hasn’t really lowered the anxiety in the way that they would’ve hoped. And maybe there’s the eating disorder saying, “If this is how anxious you are now, imagine what would’ve happened if you’d eaten more today.” But people don’t typically turn up at that event and they’re like, “Oh, I feel really calm and relaxed.” Actually, it starts to increase the anxiety.

And then when the food is there and it is available and they have the opportunity to eat, that idea of having real freedom isn’t really there, either. Often, there’s still this huge amount of anxiety and worry, and typically what we find is while someone anticipated they were going to eat more than they usually do, it doesn’t often turn out to be the case. Sometimes it is, but more often than not, someone actually ends up eating the same as what they would usually eat or even less than what they would usually eat. They don’t have this really lovely experience as part of that meal; it just leads to more worry and often more restriction.

They don’t have this really enjoyable piece with it in terms of the food enjoyment with it, either, because when you’re in that more anxious state, it has an impact on your enjoyment of it.

I think there’s this misunderstanding as well of “When I’m hungry, I enjoy food more; if I get even hungrier, I’ll enjoy it even more”, like it just continues to go up and up and up and up, and that “The hungrier I get, it’s going to have the impact of making this so enjoyable.”

While it can be true that your level of hunger can have an impact on your level of enjoyment or satisfaction, there is a point where there’s this real diminishing returns on that stuff, where you go past the point where this is actually helping you and is now a hindrance to you. You’ve gone too far, if you will. This is what typically people will find when they do this: it doesn’t lead to a more enjoyable experience. It just gets in the way.

00:09:37

Negative knock-on effects of restricting before an event

This can then have this further knock-on effect as well, because then, often, the next day there can be the feeling of “Well, I didn’t have that snack or I didn’t have that lunch yesterday, so I’m not sure if I should be having it again today.” It’s amazing how quickly a change that is more in line with the eating disorder very quickly becomes the new norm. You only have to do something for a day or two or maybe three, and it’s like “No, this is what we do. We can’t do anything different because this is what we’ve been doing.”

So there is the likelihood that the next day, it makes eating whatever was skipped even more challenging. It can be more challenging as well if the reflection is, “Well, I ate more at dinner last night than I usually do”, so then the next day it’s like, “I need to restrict again today because of what happened last night with my eating”, and it then very quickly becomes this very vicious cycle.

I would say even if it doesn’t affect the next day, it then affects the next time you have one of those meals. The next time there is an event coming up, it really solidifies, “This is the way that I deal with events. Any time there is an event, this is what I have to do to allow myself to eat that food, to give myself permission to eat that food.” It really creates this pattern.

00:11:07

Why it’s helpful to actually eat extra food before an event

What I would like to suggest is that I don’t actually think this is the best way to go to an event, and that it doesn’t really help you enjoy that event more. If anything, it makes it less enjoyable.

What I typically recommend when clients bring this up and say, “Hey, I’ve got this thing on Friday night where we’re going out for pizza with girlfriends, and I’m really unsure of what I should do during the day” or “I’ve got Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner” or whatever is coming up – my recommendation with this is always: If you have an event – let’s say you’ve got an event in the evening, just as this example. If there is an event in the evening, your eating shouldn’t be impacted upon by that day. Even if you truly believe that that evening meal is going to be more or even significantly more than you would usually eat, I still suggest that you don’t change anything throughout the day, that you’re not restricting in any way.

Because what happens when you turn up to that meal in a low-energy, restricted state is that has an impact on your anxiety. It has an impact on your capacity to be able to truly enjoy the meal for the food, to be able to talk to other people and be able to be present and to follow along in the conversation.

What does help you to be able to do all those things is to turn up to that meal not in that depleted, deprived state. So making sure that you’re not restricting throughout the day – and if anything, I will typically say eat more than you usually do. And if you have that dinner coming up, it’s possibly useful to have a snack or even a biggish snack maybe an hour, an hour and a half before that meal so that you’re able to turn up and you’re able to be calm and relaxed.

‘Calm and relaxed’ might be too big a thing at this point, and that might not be what occurs, but you’re able to be present with the people there. Because what often happens with a meal like this is that you turn up, there’s talking, there’s chatting. If you’re at a restaurant, it might be then another half an hour, could even be an hour before food is even served. So you think, “Oh, I’m meeting people at 6:00, there’s no way I should be having something at 5:00”, but the reality is that you might not be eating dinner until 7:00. So having that snack that you had at 5:00 really does help you.

I’ve had a number of clients do this recently because there were events coming up, and when they have done this, the reports back have always been really positive. It’s “I was actually able to be calmer with my friends. I was able to participate in conversations. I was able to enjoy the food more because I wasn’t so ravenous at the point that I sat down or the point that the food was being put in front of me. I was able to enjoy not just the food, but the experience there. I was able to notice when I wanted to be having more food, because I could notice I was still hungry, so I was able to have more.”

So it actually increased their enjoyment of that meal, but it also helped them to recognise, “This is the way that I want to do this going forward. Restricting doesn’t help me, but eating well allows me to enjoy that meal more.”

00:14:41

Positive knock-on effects of eating before an event

That then has a knock-on effect with regular meals. If there is the eating disorder thought throughout the day of “Hey, let’s not have that snack now because we really want to enjoy dinner later on”, there can be the realisation of “That’s not actually true. I can have something now, and it’s more than likely going to enhance my enjoyment of that meal later on.”

As I said, I think one of the big fears is that “I’m going to get to that meal and then I’m not going to be hungry, and that’s going to be a complete disaster. It’s going to be such a waste, or I’m going to be so upset and so disappointed when that happens.” It’s highly unlikely that that actually occurs in terms of if you’ve had good eating throughout the day and you’ve had snacks, and even if you’ve had that snack an hour before you’re meeting or whatever, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be not hungry for the meal.

But in the cases where this has happened with people, where they’ve turned up and they recognise, “Hey, I’m just not as hungry as I ordinarily would be for my dinner or at this point of the day”, the takeaway from that experience wasn’t that they were absolutely gutted and that it ruined anything; they were able to notice, “Hey, I still enjoyed myself. I was still able to order some food, I was still able to eat the food, and it was still enjoyable.”

So this fear that this would absolutely ruin everything just didn’t turn out to be true. And as I said, it’s unlikely that that’s going to occur, but even when it does occur, it doesn’t pan out in the way that the eating disorder makes you think that it’s going to.

00:16:19

Eating disorder behaviours create an unhelpful cascade

I think as part of this, if I’m thinking about this in a broader context, there’s often things that get done as part of the eating disorder – and this could be eating disorder behaviours – that really create this cascade of events that might not be as you intended them to go, and they don’t match up to what you thought would happen.

In this example, “I restrict before this big meal in the hope that it will lead to more calmness or reduction in my anxiety and more enjoyment of the food”, but it does the opposite. It increases the anxiety; you get to this more low-energy state, you’re more ravenous, you’re more unable to focus and concentrate, and it leads to a diminished enjoyment of that meal.

Another example of this could be around exercise. This is something that I hear often, in this same vein: “I exercise in the morning, and I do that exercise in the morning because it then allows me to eat more throughout the day. It helps me to be able to eat more throughout the day because if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to allow myself to do it.”

If someone’s been doing that for a really long time, on the surface, that is truly how it feels to them. But typically what happens when someone is exercise in the day, especially at the beginning of the day – especially if they’re doing it in a fasted state – it has an impact on someone’s hunger and someone’s appetite, and it blunts that response. For someone who’s really wanting to continue on with the eating disorder, that might feel like “Great, this is actually what I want to have happen.”

But if someone is truly wanting to recover, that’s not what you’re wanting to have happen. You’re wanting to get proper hunger signals and appetite signals from the body. As scary as that may sound, you’re wanting to get this feedback from the body.

So this idea that “By exercising, it gives me more permission to do this eating”, it typically doesn’t then translate, because “Then I get to my breakfast or I get to my morning snack and I’m just not as hungry as I would be if that exercise hadn’t happened.” Then that has an impact on the amount of energy that is consumed throughout the day.

Versus “Hey, I have put a pause on that thing, and I’m noticing that there is more hunger coming up throughout the day, and as hard as it may be to be able to give myself permission to eat, there’s a lot more cognitive dissonance when I’m not doing that, when I’m now restricting against that hunger or resisting against that hunger, because it’s very obvious that I’m now really hungry, and I’m saying that I’m wanting to recover.”

So actually by removing that exercise in the morning, that is allowing someone to really recognise their hunger and to then do something about it, to follow through on that and to do the recovery that is going to be so helpful in changing the quality of your life for the better, to be able to have the kinds of relationships that you want to have, to be able to have the freedom to just go out to a meal and not have the first thought be “My God, what am I going to have to do today to be able to allow myself to do that, to compensate or to restrict or even just have to cancel because I can’t bring myself to go to that thing?”

That’s not the life that I want you to be living. I want you to have the freedom to be doing things like going out and seeing friends and being able to participate in things like this.

00:20:01

Run the experiment

So that is what I wanted to talk about today. As I regularly say with clients I work with, I want you to run this experiment. I never know exactly what’s going to happen with someone, and I would love to be able to say I know exactly categorically what is going to happen in every situation, but the reality is I don’t. I have a pretty good indication, a pretty good hunch. I’ve been doing this for a long time; I understand how things work. So I have a pretty good indication that this is going to increase your enjoyment and increase your ability to eat more of this meal.

My suggestion is run this experiment. If you have an event coming up, do as I’ve suggested as part of this podcast and see what you notice. See if it improves your experience compared to spending the day restricting.

So that is it for this episode. As I said at the top, I’m taking on new clients. If you are wanting to recover from an eating disorder and reach a place of full recovery, then I would love to help. You can send an email to info@seven-health.com and just put ‘coaching’ in the subject line.

That is it for today’s podcast. I will catch you again next week. Until then, take care, and I’ll see you soon!

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