Ending the binge-restrict cycle (part 1)
When it comes to making long lasting behaviour changes with nutrition, I tend to believe that the issue isn’t usually a lack of knowledge around nutrition, it’s more likely that there’s a struggle with finding balance.
What even is ‘balance’?
It’s this term that keeps getting thrown around that seems to mean discovering the elusive ‘right amount’ of work and play, or sinful and saintly.
I used to think that balance meant sticking to calorie deficit macros religiously Monday to Thursday - and then letting myself off the hook Friday to Sunday by indulging in takeaways, desserts, alcohol and lavish restaurant dinners.
Many of the personal trainers who I’ve worked alongside over the years were the same, and they’d all use the term ‘balance’ when unashamedly sharing how they’d get black out drunk two weekend nights in a row and then rot in bed with a Maccas order the following day (all while boasting six pack abs and rock solid pecs, of course - such a testimony to balance! Sarcasm intended).
I don’t judge people who live this kind of lifestyle, since that used to be me, but the concern that I have when I notice patterns like this in clients who exhibit either ‘all in’ or ‘all out’ behaviour, is that:
It imposes a level of rigidity during the week, or ‘good’ days that can be difficult to stick to all the time.
This creates a tendency for there to be an underlying current of anxiety on those days around eating the ‘wrong’ thing or going over your target macros for the day.
The amount of mental space that this anxiety takes up means that we end up missing out on being truly present in our own lives. We reduce our capacity to feel positive emotions like joy, empathy, gratitude or appreciation because we are consumed by our own fears around food.
It’s incredibly taxing on the individual, and can leave us feeling miserable, fed up, and stuck. We look at other people who seem to be able to eat whatever they want without gaining weight in jealousy - but also sadness as we accept the belief that we’ll always have to restrict our food intake to some level just to avoid gaining weight - and to actually lose weight would be a whole different story.
Of course this belief isn’t actually true, if we were able to truly find ‘balance’ in our day to day lives, not just on our ‘cheat days’, it would be so much easier to maintain our weight and also lose weight if that is the goal.
2. It disconnects us from being able to listen to our body’s hunger signals effectively.
During periods of restriction, we ignore feelings of hunger, or potentially even glorify it by prolonging those feelings for longer than they need to be there for. Sometimes we suppress our appetite with black coffee, chewing gum, drinking litres of water and eating huge amounts of low calorie ‘volume’ foods.
During days where we say ‘screw it’ and let ourselves off the hook, we eat and drink beyond the point of fullness - often eating quickly or while distracted to avoid having to notice how full we are getting. Those of us who use alcohol do the same thing, drinking quickly and without concern for how drunk we get, as opposed to enjoying the taste or paying attention to the tipsy-ness that arises after each drink.
The more we ignore what our bodies are trying to tell us, the quieter those signals become, until we barely hear them anymore.
This means that eventually, if we want to lose weight sustainably, quit bingeing, or if we want to stop tracking macros/trying to diet, and just eat intuitively - it’s almost impossible to follow the commonly repeated advice to ‘just eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full’.
When we respect our body’s innate wisdom by honouring our hunger and fullness cues, not only does it become a lot easier to achieve these things, but it assists in improving our relationship with our bodies as well.
You can’t improve your body image and your relationship with your body while intentionally suppressing what your body is trying to tell you.
Our bodies already come with the instinctive wisdom to guide our food choices. And let me assure you, they’re not telling you to eat 1200 calories a day and cut out sugar.
When you allow your body to guide your eating decisions, you can expect to be able to know the right portion sizes for you, the right times of day to eat for you, when your body is craving more nutrient dense types of foods, and when your body says ‘it’s ok, go ahead and enjoy’ to other types of foods.
Even if weight loss is your goal, listening to your body is still important Ignoring or suppressing your hunger for too long at a time will put you at more risk of binge eating and sabotaging your progress. Plus, it’s important that in your weight loss journey, you take regular maintenance phases to avoid relapsing and rebounding. Maintenance phases are the ideal time to practice listening to your body to guide your eating behaviours.
3. Both bingeing and restricting have negative health consequences.
When we restrict food too strictly and too often, we risk developing nutrient deficiencies, damaging our hormonal health, spiking our cortisol levels, developing IBS/gut issues, and experiencing unpleasant side effects like tiredness, poor sleep, hair loss, reduced training capacity and mood disturbances. And that’s just the beginning… The more severely we restrict - getting closer to being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa or orthorexia - the more life sabotaging the health risks become.
The short term effects of binge eating are mostly psychological - guilt and shame being commonly held emotions to experience right after a binge.
But in the long term, repeated binge eating can severely affect self esteem and psychological well being. Many binge eaters report feeling ‘like a failure’ and struggle with negative self-talk. Beyond that, it’s extremely common to experience weight gain which places a burden on our overall health. Most of us are familiar with the health conditions associated with being overweight, such as increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, these people usually don’t need reminding of these risks, and it is my belief that by doing so we only perpetuate the guilt that those who struggle with binge eating already experience.
In order to overcome the damage that bingeing and restricting causes to our physical and mental well-being, we need to re-learn what ‘balance’ truly is. Rather than alternating periods of bingeing and restricting, it’s important to find a way of eating that is less restrictive in general, that still supports our overall health and well-being.
This is essentially what it means when we hear the term ‘healing our relationship with food’.
Healing our relationship with food is the only way to end a binge-restrict cycle and is central to improving our self image as well.
In retrospect, my previously held idea of ‘balance’ really was simply a binge-restrict cycle in disguise.
My experience with clients leads me to believe that many of us might be under this false assumption as well.
Do you have a balanced lifestyle?
Or are you just going through periods of restriction followed by periods of bingeing, but convincing yourself that you’re just practising ‘balance’?
I’d love to hear your thoughts,
Please comment below if you can relate.
L
x
