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Binge eating: why you do it and how to stop · No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK

0:00
@paulthenutritionist: Hello, thank you for listening first and foremost, we're always in the charts. Now I have something for you, if you struggle with weekends, whether that is knowing how to go out, how to eat, what to drink, if you can drink alcohol, if you get hungover, all of that stuff, then go to the nutritionistuk.com/weekend and download your completely free guide. Completely free, no nonsense. It's a thank you from me too. Welcome to No Forking Nonsense, the podcast that slices through the nonsense and serves you straight talking nutrition advice that actually works.
0:35
I'm Paul, a registered nutritionist and your host. And every episode, I'll be debunking diet myths, breaking down confusing food advice, and giving you practical science backed tips to help you eat better, feel better, and get your edge back. There'll be no fads, no shite, just real talk that makes sense. Let's get stuck in. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Forking Nonsense and let's talk about something that nobody wants to admit.
1:03
You've been good all week, you've ate your calories, you've tracked everything, you've said no to biscuits at work and then what happens? Saturday comes along. You eat one slice of pizza, then three and the entire box and the ice cream, then you end up in the cupboard and by Sunday you're lying on the sofa feeling like absolute shit, promising yourself that you'll go again on Monday. That sound familiar? Well in this episode we're going to be talking about BINGE, why it happens, why it's not a willpower issue and how to stop the cycle so you can actually enjoy your food without spiralling every weekend.
1:47
So the first thing we want to be clear about is what we're talking about. A binge isn't just eating a bit too much at dinner, a binge is where you feel like you lose control or it's un panned eating. When you eat past fullness, past enjoyment, past the point where you even want food, when you're eating mechanically, quickly, almost disconnected from what you're doing and afterwards guilt, shame, the promise to restrict harder next week to make up for it. But here's what you need to understand, this isn't a character issue, it's a kind of physiological, biological response to your body because your body is designed to respond to restriction with overeating, it's like a survival mechanism and it's from millions of years of evolution of kind of when we used to be cavemen and we didn't know when we were getting food and we'd have to consume this food to store it. GTO.
2:50
We're going to explain why this and how this actually works. So there was a study that I've referred to before in 1944, it was a starvation experiment and the researcher took 36 healthy men and put them on a semi starvation diet where they were roughly eating 1,600 calories a day for six months. And these weren't overall weight, they were just normal healthy fit men. But they became obsessed with food, they started ordering recipes, they dreamed about eating, their personalities changed and they became irritable, anxious, withdrawn and when the experiment ended and they were allowed to eat freely again, they binged hard. Some of them were eating 10,000 calories a single day, they just couldn't stop even when they were physically uncomfortable.
3:34
And that's because their bodies were in that survival mode, their brains were screaming, famine, eat everything you could find. And that's what you're doing if you find yourself in this situation every Monday to Friday or quote unquote, and I don't like this phrase, being good. You're under eating probably, cutting out the foods you enjoy, you know, kind of forcing your way through hunger. And your body interprets that as famine. Doesn't know what you're doing on purpose, it just knows that you're underfed.
4:03
So when Saturday comes along or Friday and you're around food, your brain hits panic button, just goes eat now, we don't know when food's coming again and that's the bin. And as I say it is literally your body trying to keep alive. Then there's the kind of blood sugar roller coaster. So when you under eat or eat your blood sugar is constantly low and you're running on fumes, then Saturday hits you eat something, maybe a size pizza, maybe a biscuit and your blood sugar spikes rapidly because you've been so deprived. So your body panics and it thinks finally food and releases a massive hit incident to deal with sugar.
4:40
But here's the problem, when you've been restricted your body overcompensates, it releases too much insulin and then obviously your blood sugar crashes hard. So that's when your blood sugar crashes What that feels like is hunger, intense kind of hunger as well, not just any hunger but also impacts your energy levels as well. So you eat, your blood sugar spikes again, insulin floods in, crashes again, more hunger And this is just that kind of rollercoaster of blood sugar and this is why one biscuit often turns into 10. There was a study in 2015 that looked at restrained eaters, so people who chronically restrict their food intake and researchers found that when these people were exposed to food after a period of restriction, their brain's reward centres lit up. The same areas lit up that activate drug addiction, So their brains were treating the food like a drug not because they're food addicts but because they've prostricting.
5:41
So when you eat normally, consistently without go probation, those reward centers calm down and then food becomes just food. So I want to talk about that kind of fuck it button that people have and it's psychological side right, so you've been good all week, you've been on your calories, you've said no to everything and then as I say you know Friday, Saturday morning comes along, you have a slice of toast, gone over 50 calories of your target, your brain goes well I've ruined it so I might eat everything now and start again Monday and this is called the fuck it but That's an all or nothing thing. You know, if you're not perfect you're failing so why bother trying? And this is just kind of cognitive distortion and it's incredibly common in people who die in for years because people will often find themselves just kind of kicking the shit out. There was a study in 2018 which found that people with a history of restrict being were significantly more likely to engage in the kind of all on thinking around food.
6:48
They couldn't just have one biscuit, it was either zero biscuits or the entire biscuits, they're all or nothing, I'm either all in or all out. And the reason for this is because they spent years telling themselves to set up food bad and they were only good and they avoided them. So when they ate bad food, they'd already failed. And if you've already failed, then why stop at one? And the solution isn't more restriction, it's about permission and working out, you know, you can have biscuits, you can enjoy it, but where does it fit in to my day to day?
7:22
And I say to everybody, unless you're doing sports, you should never have free sugars an empty stomach, doesn't make any sense. Make sure you pair them with fibre, sure you pair them with a source of protein but there is a place for them, there is a place for those biscuits but it's just about having them smartly so you have them post dinner, have them post lunch, you have a source of protein source of fibre. The only thing I want talk about is you're probably not eating that. So let me get specific. Most people who binge are chronically undereat during the week and I have many many people who come to me eating 1,200 calories.
7:57
They're training five times a week, they're walking 10,000 steps, they're busy with their kids life and they wonder why they can't stop eating at the weekend and the reality is if you're active and you're eating less than 1,800 calories a day, probably under eating. Your body needs energy to function, to think, to move, to recover, to regulate hormones, to manage stress and when you don't give it enough energy during the week, it will take a on the weekend, whether you like it or not. Moderate restriction is around 15 to 20% below medicines and that's sustainable and won't trigger overcompensate dietary eating. When I work with my clients, I'll put them depending on kind of how much weight they've got to lose and what their lifestyle is, I'll put them usually around 15% that's where we want to get to. If you're eating 1,200 calories Monday to Friday and binge in 3,000 on Saturday, your weekly average is probably going to be above where you thought it would be.
8:56
So you know you might as well just eat 1,800 every day and skip the gilt, the shame, the physical discomfort. Pattern I see a lot with people is what's happening in evenings. So you eat well during the day because it's structured, you're at work and then 7PM hits, kids are in bed, you finish work, you finally sit down and you eat everything. And the reason for this is that you've been in restriction mode all day and by the evening your willpower's depleted, decision fatigue has kicked in, your body's lacking in energy because obviously you've been busy all day and you've used mental and physical energy. Often people focus on food to decompress so you know you're stressed, you're exhausted and food becomes kind of the only thing that you do for yourself and it's not actually about hunger, it's about soothing, it's about comfort, it's a moment of pleasure in a day that's been quite brilliant.
9:50
And then obviously if you've been under eating in the day then your body, you'll finally sit down the floodgate soak because your body wants to make sure that you're eating enough food. So the fix is just to eat more consistently during the day, make sure that you're eating a good source of protein, a source of fibre, structure in your meals. You eat, you have a proper breakfast, have a sustainable lunch, you have an afternoon snack, you have a decent dinner and when you are adequately fuelled, the evening binge just won't happen because you're not genuinely hungry and you're not running off pukes. So here's what actually works because we've done the theory so let's talk about some practical things. It's important that you eat enough during the week, this is non negotiable.
10:31
If you're eating 12 hundred-fifteen 100 calories, you will binge at weekend unless you're an eight year old girl. So aim for a moderate deficit, which is fifteen-twenty percent. For most people, that's anywhere from 19 hundred-two 200 calories per day depending on activity. Message me if you're unsure, I would much rather give you an accurate number as opposed to you guessing it. Stop labelling foods as good or bad, say food is just food.
10:59
Biscuit isn't morally bad, you're not cheating when you have pizza. When you remove that moral judgment, remove guilt, there is a place for it, it's just about where we have it and allow yourselves to eat those foods, know, if you love chocolate, have chocolate but just make sure you plan it and you have it you know, after dinner. When you give yourself permission and you've thought about it and it's not mindless, it stops being forbidden and it just becomes chocolate. Eat consistently, don't skip meals, don't save calories, don't stage yourself I'm too busy to eat because it will catch up to you, it might catch up to you later tonight, tomorrow, in a week, two weeks, a month, at some point your body will remember and it'll come for you. So it's so important that you're as consistent, our bodies love consistency and this is why if you've ever woken
11:48
@paulthenutritionist: up in the middle of
11:49
@paulthenutritionist: the night and had a piss and then the next three nights you wake up at the same time because your body loves reading. Identify actual twiggered. Are you binging because you're genuinely hungry or because you're stressed, bored, anxious, lonely? If it's emotional food is not the solution, you need different coping strategy. A walk, a phone call, a bath, go to the gym, whatever actually helps.
12:10
Stop trying to compensate as well. If you overeat Saturday, don't restrict Sunday to make up for it. Just go back to normal eating. One day of overeating doesn't really end. Just a week of restricting to compensate will trigger another binge next week.
12:25
Get support as if you've been stuck in the restrict binge cycle for years, probably can't sit alone. This is where a nutritionist like me comes in. You know, you want to work with somebody who understands psychology and biology like me. Someone who won't just give you a meal plan and tell you to stick to it. Someone who's got experience of working with people who've been stuck in binge and strict.
12:49
People who have under eaten, people who have over eaten, somebody like me. So here's what I want you to understand, binge eating is not a moral failure, it's probably a symptom of something else going on, the symptom of chronic restriction, a symptom of all or nothing thinking, a symptom of years spent believing you can't trust yourself around food but you can trust yourself, you just need to stop restricting. When you eat enough, when you give yourself permission, when you fuel yourself as I guide so many people to do, when you stop labelling foods as good or bad the binges will stop. The thing that I do to stop people bingeing is ensuring that they're eating enough and then they won't binge restrict and it's something that I'm very good at and consistently you know I have results with all my clients who have previously binged and restrict. Once we get through that then they start to lose weight without feeding themselves.
13:43
So things you can do right now don't restrict tomorrow If you pinched, you know, today, eat normally breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, hit your usual kind of foods, do not try and undo the pinch. Reflect without judgement. So what did trigger the binge? Were you genuinely hungry? Were you stressed?
14:01
Were you bored? Identify that pattern and don't beat yourself up and then adjust the plan. If you're eating too little during the week, increase your calories. If you're cutting out foods you love, add them back in. If you're skipping meals, start eating consistently but work out where to put them in and again use me for this.
14:20
Give it time. Breaking the restrict binge cycle takes weeks, not days. Your body needs to learn that food is no longer scarce and that's why often with people who have been undereating for so long and under fuelling as well in general, if you're somebody who does loads of exercise and you're probably not fuelling your body, it's going to take time. I have this conversation with a lot of people. It will take time for your body to trust and weight loss will come, but we've got to bring your calories up to begin with.
14:48
You've to be patient and trust the processor. So that's it. Binge eating, it's not your fault. It is, as I say, a biological, physiological response, it's psychology, it's an inevitable result no restrictions, so stop restricting, eat enough, give yourself permission and those binges will stop. And if you need help with this proper, structured support, I have covered.
15:14
You can access five days of free coaching tinyurl.com/kickstart26 or if you want a free meal maker, you can head to the description of the podcast which will help you create meals which are really really helpful, without you having to track absolutely everything for the rest of your life. So head to the podcast description where you can get that. If you've any other questions, need help or support with anything I've said, send me a message and I will happy. It's PaulNutritionist. I'll speak to next time.
15:50
That's it for this episode of No Forking Nonsense,
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@paulthenutritionist: where the fluff gets binned and
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@paulthenutritionist: the facts get served. If you found this helpful share it with someone who could do some clarity from an expert. That's me by the way. And make sure you hit follow so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want more straight talking, no nonsense nutrition advice come and find me on Instagram paulnthenutritionist.
16:09
Until next time, eat smart, feel human again, and stop falling for the Forking Nonsense. See you next time.