You’re sitting there, mired in shame and regret. You look around, assessing the damage: empty bowls, plates, containers and wrappers. Your mind frantically tries to add up the caloric estimate of what was consumed and it is coming up with what seems like a catastrophically high number.
Despite having sworn to yourself that this would NEVER happen again and that you would do anything to control yourself, it still happened.
You’ve just experienced another binge.
Whatever brief moment of respite or joy the food might have brought you is now being flooded by a tsunami of negative thoughts and emotions crashing over you.
You probably wish you were able to turn back time and undo what just happened, but for lack of a functioning time machine, all you have is now and the future. So, in this cacophony of thoughts, one question sticks out as the most important: “How can I possibly make up for this?”
Now, I understand why this is the first thought that comes to mind: Bingeing is the exact opposite of what you want to be doing with food. In a mind that is fixated on calories, pounds/kilos and weight loss, a binge is the worst thing that could happen.
And while it makes logical sense why these thoughts come to mind, consider for a minute that this entire process — including your decision to “repent” — probably has been on repeat quite a number of times already.
So, I’d like to suggest a far more helpful way of looking at this: examining the bigger picture and finding a way forward that truly helps you long-term.
Quite predictably, I went on Google myself, just to see what the internet has to offer in response to this question. And, as a qualified professional in the field of nutrition, disordered eating and eating disorders, I have to say that I’m horrified by what I found.
Most of what is being suggested are simply more of what actually caused the binge in the first place: More willpower, more restriction, possibly fasting, more exercise, and more ways to distract yourself from hunger. In other words, you’re being told to do more of what you’ve already tried so many times before, but this time hoping for a different outcome.
Which, quite intentionally, implies that you haven’t tried hard enough, placing the guilt on you. When, in reality, what happened is simply a logical consequence of the previous actions and assumptions.
While some of what I’m about to tell you might fly in the face of what you have read or heard before, you’ll finally be able to see what’s really going on behind the curtains.
In order to truly step out of that self-defeating cycle, start by asking yourself an entirely different question — one that might cause initial resistance: “How could I best support and nurture myself so that binge eating is no longer necessary?”
To come up with the most effective strategies, I suggest you divide the answers into two categories: The short-term and the long-term perspective.
Now, you’re probably very interested in finding out what’s at the heart of you being stuck in this restrict-binge cycle, and the steps to get out of it for good: the long term perspective. This is something I have written about in great detail and from many different angles. So rather than re-writing it all, you’ll find links to the relevant articles embedded below.
The main focus of this article will be on the shorter-term view, as I haven’t covered this topic in one place before. In other words, we will look at a variety of things you can do in the first 24 hours after a binge occurs.
As you probably know very well, one of the first thoughts that come up following a binge is “how do I make up for this?” or “how can I compensate for what just happened?”
Now, you’ll most likely have your preferred weapon(s) of choice: Some people make plans to restrict their food intake in the immediate future, some are deciding to increase their exercise or movement, some purge, others take laxatives (to name just a few).
I can absolutely see why these decisions are being made, as these actions seem to help to ease the anguish of the moment. Unfortunately, all of these actions will only ever serve to reinforce the chosen behaviour while also making another binge inevitable.
Binges occur in response to restriction and from the body receiving less energy than it truly needs. This is true irrespective of weight. You can be in a state of malnourishment all across the weight spectrum, something I covered in this podcast episode.
It’s also true despite you thinking that you already eat a lot of food. Just because you think you eat a lot of food does not mean that your body would agree. As a society we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we should all get by on the least amount of food possible, and that this somehow means we’re being virtuous and “healthy”.
It’s exactly this misconception of “how much the body really needs” that leads people to eat less than what they need. When this inevitably starts backfiring, they feel like they are broken, addicted to food, or simply too weak.
So, even if you feel the urge to do something to compensate, try not to. Your compensation is simply going to set you up for another binge and will therefore keep you stuck in this cycle.
By now, you might be thinking “well, if I can’t compensate, what should I do??” There are numerous options. Considering that your mind is probably giving you hell, it could come across as trite, but putting all those thoughts to paper is a good start.
I’m always amazed at the power of journaling, and it is particularly helpful after an episode of binge eating. This is because, in the immediate aftermath, thoughts are often racing, loud and confusing.
Journaling can help us make sense of this internal noise. By writing out whatever comes up — think of it as a “brain dump” — we can externalise what’s inside. I’ve had many clients reporting back to me that the simple act of putting their thoughts on paper reduces the ongoing rumination and that it helps them to bring in some objectivity.
Journaling can also be used as a way of creating more positive emotions, especially in a moment when positivity seems out of reach. In this case, it serves to break the current, negative cognitive pattern that stands in the way of building up mental awareness and emotional strength.
Here are a few sentence prompts that are helpful when you’re swept up by negative thoughts and emotions after a binge:
Right now, I am at least grateful for…
Right now, I am at least happy for…
Right now, I can at least feel secure in knowing that…
Right now, I am proud to at least….
If you find more than one answer, feel free to write them all down: your neural wiring will thank you for the challenge.
Journaling is most beneficial when done regularly, just like any practice. Many of my clients have found a way of making it a daily ritual, for example as part of their morning routine. So it shouldn’t be something that is reserved solely for after a binge.
Self-compassion, as defined by Kristen Neff, consists of three main elements:
One of the key reasons you might feel reluctant to practise self-compassion after a binge is a common logical fallacy: you’re fearful that if you were kind to yourself, you’d surely only be inviting the next binge. I’ve heard many clients tell me that they “must be harsh and critical” in order to prevent another bingeing episode.
In reality, the opposite is true: As soon as a client starts offering themselves more self-compassion (not just after a binge, but in general as well), things begin to change for the better.
For most people, this immediately makes sense when they’re asked to take a different perspective: Imagine if — instead of you — a good friend of yours was in your exact position.
How would you talk to them? Would you berate and shame them? Would you put them in isolation and punish them with restriction and compensatory exercise? Or would you be kind to them, show them warmth and make them feel less alone? Wouldn’t you automatically help them to get out of their head that’s filled with horrible self-berating thoughts?
I am pretty sure that you would.
Now, instead of saving all of your kindness for others who suffer, try practising being kind to yourself as well.
When clients tell me about their binges, they often talk about the pain this comes with.
There is the physical pain:
Then there is emotional pain:
These feelings often go hand in hand with very old narratives, the ones that got established very early on in life. A common one is when people think they’re not lovable or good enough.
As if that wasn’t painful enough already, what comes in on top of that is future tripping: this is a person painting horrible scenarios of what’s waiting for them around the corner of time.
Understandably, all this mental noise causes most people to get stuck in their head.
When I ask my clients to differentiate between those two categories and tell me about their experience, they all tell me that the emotional pain is by far tougher to endure.
What I find particularly interesting is that, when not actively separated, most of the physical pain actually gets more accentuated by the mental anguish. Let me give an example.
A client mentioned that she had a binge and that it was physically painful. I asked her to describe the physical pain and she said that it felt like she was crawling out of her skin from noticing how full her stomach felt.
I asked her if she ever felt this full from what she would consider “normal” eating. She reflected and mentioned that there had, in fact, been many times in the past when she’d felt this full: it was always from eating lots and lots of vegetables. These were all foods she deemed as “safe” and “healthy.” And so in those moments, the fullness itself didn’t bother her that much.
Because of our conversation, she started recognising that what she thought of as an uncomfortable physical symptom was only so uncomfortable because of how she got that full. She could admit that she would feel less bad had she reached this point by eating something she considered “healthy”.
Obviously, there is a big difference between physical pain and emotional pain. The two don’t necessarily have to occur together, even if it might feel that way right now. It is completely possible to feel physically overfull, with cramps and bloating, possibly even nausea, without having a negative emotional response to any of it. People without food issues, including myself, would attest to having experienced this.
Individuals with a peaceful relationship with food and their body generally have an emotional response that is much more soft and gentle. With a lot of self-compassion, such a person might think “Oh well, it happens to the best of us. And boy, wasn’t it delicious?”
The good thing is that this is just as true for people who are fully recovered: You, too, will be able to see yourself as someone that needs to be loved and taken care of.
Note: This exercise lends itself perfectly to your new journaling routine. If you experienced a binge, first start by writing down the part of the pain that is purely physical, and then the part of the emotional pain. That way, you will quickly be able to differentiate between the two.
As I mentioned earlier, binges occur because the body hasn’t been getting what it needs. From a purely physical standpoint, this is rather self-explanatory. Now, if you take a broader perspective, you suddenly start seeing yourself as a whole being: A being with a variety of needs that aren’t just physical in nature, but also emotional and mental.
Needless to say, it’s highly likely that many (or even most) of these needs aren’t currently being met the way they need to be. For quite a number of my clients, this goes back to internalised messages that they heard early on in life. Maybe these sound familiar to you as well:
“You’re too needy!”
“Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
“Are you even trying?”
These are merely three examples of how a person’s needs, emotions and efforts are being invalidated and silenced.
And this is part of the vicious cycle that so regularly happens with binges: You feel terrible about what happened and you speak to yourself harshly and critically. Because you want to escape this terror, you increase compensating behaviours to ease the pain. And it’s exactly those behaviours that set up the next binge.
As you feel more and more ashamed, you start isolating yourself. Over time, you see fewer and fewer friends, and if you do, you feel walled off from them.
Because some of your compensatory strategies take up so much time and mental space, you now “don’t have time” for what previously brought you joy. One by one, your hobbies and passions fall by the wayside.
Now you know why it’s so important and helpful to ask yourself “how can I best take care of myself right now?”
It helps to think of this question in advance, and put a list of some ideas on paper. Because in the immediate aftermath of a binge, it’s unlikely that you’ll just come up with ideas on the spot. So, that list will come in handy when things get hard.
Here are some ideas to pick from:
The above is obviously a non-exhaustive list. Some of these may feel like they won’t be helpful, so think about what would work for you.
Now that you have a list of all the things that will nurture you, let’s have a quick look at things that should actively be avoided after a binge. Things like:
Again, this is a non-exhaustive list. The main goal here is that you want to avoid any content or feedback that is going to increase self-criticism or judgement, or content that could push you towards behaviours that would only restart the restrict-binge cycle.
This is the part that functions as a bridge between the short-term and the longer-term strategies, as it works from both perspectives.
We’ve clearly established this truth: A binge never occurs for no reason. You might, at times, think that it came completely out of the blue, or for “lack of willpower”, but there is always a chain of events that leads up to a binge.
Understanding this chain of circumstances in an objective and rational way can be incredibly helpful for you in turning this around.
One of the ways that I do this with clients is using a “Behaviour Awareness Sheet” (which you can view here).
Let me quote a paragraph of this sheet:
“Research shows that while our behaviours may seem “spur-of-the-moment” when it comes to “overeating” or “binges”, the groundwork is laid in advance, by our daily rituals, habits, mindsets and our automatic thinking. “Overeating” or “bingeing” is simply the last link in a long chain. If you can break the first link, you have a much better chance of never reaching that last link.”
So whenever a binge occurs, I suggest you start by filling in the sheet, answering these questions:
The goal of this is for you to start discovering some of the patterns and commonalities of your binges. Is it a certain time of day, or a type of situation, or a particular food, the presence/absence of other people, or a feeling? Any one or all of these factors could be connected to the binge.
As you’ll have noticed, the sheet starts with “1-2 hours before it happened”, which is a pretty narrow time window. Depending on the frequency of binges, I will often go much further back in time with my clients: in almost all cases, the groundwork for a binge has been laid a lot earlier.
For example, let’s say someone is having a binge episode once a week. In this case, we would examine what was going on in the handful of days leading up to the binge:
What was their eating like?
What was their level of activity/movement/exercise?
What was their sleeping like?
How stressful was life feeling?
Where were they in their cycle?
Were there any triggering events?
For a person who experiences bingeing every day, we might go even further back and look at how long they’ve been restricting or overexercising. This matters just as much (and often more) than what a person’s meals currently look like.
All this is to say that it’s not only about what happened just before the binge. The weakest links in the chain are most often hidden in a much longer time frame.
Doing this on your own is a challenge for anyone who struggles with food. Now, for someone with an active eating disorder, it’s close to impossible. Why? A person who has been over-exercising and/or heavily restricting what they eat (type/amounts of food), is in a state of malnourishment. This happens regardless of what that person currently weighs.
It’s this very state alone that generates its own set of thoughts and beliefs that severely impact a person’s ability to look at their situation objectively.
That’s where my work comes in: Until someone can do this on their own, I will help them with questions, explanations, and new perspectives.
In this process, clients often come to their own realisations quite naturally. What I have heard many times are things like:
“Gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I do see that every time I ate less, this ended in a binge.”
“Hmm. I hate to admit it, but my exercise really is connected to my binges.”
“I see it now, all my low-calorie meals have led to a binge.”
These insights can be uncomfortable and hard to accept, but they are incredibly valuable: in them, my clients find the solutions to break free.
Ultimately, this is an exercise to help you connect the dots and to finally understand why and how your eating got out of balance, and how to fix it.
This wraps up the part in which we examined the short-term perspective to the question “what to do after binge eating”. For the final part, let’s step back and widen the lens.
While I think the short-term solutions play an important factor in making bingeing a thing of the past, it typically takes a bigger-picture approach to really see the root of the problem. As mentioned earlier, I‘ve written many articles about all the variables that play a role in a person’s binge eating. To make this an easy starting place, I have linked to many of them below.
It’s been well-established that restriction is at the heart of why binges occur. Unfortunately, the culture we live in often promotes restricting our bodies as something that’s “healthy”, something we should all be aiming for. We hear these messages all around us: magazines, friends, family or influencers talking about detoxes, fasting, dieting, and workout plans. This podcast (including a transcript) goes through all the different types of restriction and how these invariably impact your mind and body in numerous ways — one of which is bingeing.
In one of the examples above, we talked about someone who experiences bingeing once a week. However, for many people bingeing happens at a much higher frequency. In cases like this, people often start wondering whether they have binge eating disorder. This article looks at this in detail, and it maps out what the recovery process looks like.
Binges can, in fact, be happening so often that some people feel like they must be food addicts that just can’t stop eating. This article looks at this issue and the many reasons someone ends up in this place.
When we talk about bingeing, it might be counterintuitive to mention anorexia. This is because the media typically only exposes the general population to one stereotypical view and idea of anorexia: The emaciated young woman refusing to eat.
This narrow stereotype is dangerous and harmful, as it promotes a false idea of this deadly illness. Despite what people at large might think, the majority of sufferers are presenting in bodies that don’t “look anorexic”. So, due to the overused, stereotypical view of anorexia, an untold number of people never even seek help or get an accurate diagnosis.
What’s equally common for a person with anorexia is that they, too, experience binges. In fact, often daily, in the evening, when they consume high volumes of their “safe foods”. In this article, I explain anorexia and how to recover from it in detail.
One of the contributing factors of why binges happen is that a person’s ability to recognise hunger signals has been impaired. This is typically a result of dieting, disordered eating or an eating disorder. This article looks at the many different components of hunger and how you can start noticing these sensations more clearly.
The word “binge” in and of itself is highly subjective: what it takes to cross from “normal eating” into a “binge” often hinges solely on a person’s arbitrary limit to what they think is “a normal amount of food.” This article looks at ways to reframe this idea, in order for you to get a more accurate look at what is going on with your eating.
Rather understandably, many clients who experience binge-eating have started to become fearful of certain foods. Typically, the foods that are “highly palatable”, foods they often “lost control” around, and foods they deem to be “unhealthy”. This article looks at research conducted with ice cream and milkshakes, and why rigidity around food always backfires. This podcast (including a transcript) explains why satisfaction is so important when it comes to eating. As part of it, we look at some of the issues — like bingeing — that occur when a person keeps neglecting this factor.
Many people who struggle with bingeing try intuitive eating at one point, expecting the binges to stop immediately. Of course, this is not going to be most people’s experience. This is because, for one thing, they first need to physically and mentally heal from all of the restrictions that they imposed on themselves in all their years of dieting. So, based on a false idea of what intuitive eating really is, many people soon get frustrated with themselves and think that intuitive eating isn’t working for them.
As a professional in the field who is fortunate to know the authors of the book Intuitive Eating personally, I can assure you that it does work. In fact, it is a fantastic way to repair your relationship with food and to make binges a thing of the past. In this article, I look at some of the most common ways people end up misinterpreting intuitive eating and the various ways to effectively use it to end binges.
Lastly, I can’t stress how encouraging and motivating it can be to listen to other people’s stories. People who have suffered from binge eating for years and have been able to break free from it.
This is my podcast with Isabel Foxen Duke
This is my podcast with Rini Frey
This is my podcast with Kayla Rose Kotecki
Bingeing is one of the most common reasons why people reach out to me for support. Unfortunately, as long as their methods of restricting work, they often can’t see the problem with their behaviours around food and exercise. It’s only when they invariably start “losing control around food” that they start perceiving bingeing as their problem and seek help.
Hopefully, as evidenced by the above information, you can see that bingeing is something I’m well versed in and have a deep understanding of. Thanks to this knowledge, I have been able to successfully help countless people put an end to their struggles around food and body (here is one example).
Is bingeing something you deal with and are ashamed to talk about? If you’re looking for compassionate, judgment-free support, I’d love to help.
I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.
I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.
Want to get a FREE online course created specifically for those wanting full recovery? Discover the first 5 steps to take in your eating disorder recovery. This course shows you how to take action and the exact step-by-step process. To get instant access, click the button below.
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