The Binge Eating Cycle
Binge eating is a symptom commonly seen in eating disorders. It describes when people eat a large amount of food in a short period of time. Many people will occasionally over eat, for example at Christmas or at an all you can eat buffet. However, for people with an eating disorder, binge eating quickly becomes part of a vicious cycle which is hard to escape.
Binge eating is typically triggered by emotion, physiology, or both.
Binge eating can be used as a way of managing emotions. Some people find that binge eating soothes or numbs their emotions. This creates the desire to binge eat every time they are distressed. Whilst this appears to work in the short term, bingeing is typically followed by feelings of shame or guilt. This means that the negative emotions are re-triggered, and can lead to multiple episodes of eating. Sometimes binge eating can also be used as a form of self-punishment, or can be triggered by a feeling of excitement and the need for reward. Whatever the emotional trigger, the result is the same: getting trapped in the binge cycle.
Binge eating can also be triggered by restrictive eating. Restrictive eating takes a number of forms:
Eating fewer calories than your body needs (even if you do not feel hunger signals in your stomach, low blood sugar levels may be giving your brain the message that you are hungry)
Avoiding certain food groups (e.g. carbs, fats, sugar or treat foods)
Delayed eating (putting off eating as long as possible)
Psychological restriction - holding strict food rules (whether or not you stick to them)
All of these forms of restriction make you vulnerable to binge eating. Not because you are “weak” or have “no willpower” but because our body is designed to become focussed on hunting out food when we are hungry. An evolutionary advantage when there was limited food available, becomes a difficult urge to manage in today’s society. The act of binge eating once again forms a vicious cycle, with people planning to compensate for bingeing by skipping a meal, dieting or planning to eat less tomorrow. It also often feeds into people feeling out of control of their weight and shape, or feeling bad about their body image. This further drives the urge to restrict (and the negative emotions), keeping you trapped in a vicious cycle.
Whilst this vicious cycle can make binge eating hard to beat, it can also give us some clues as to how to break the cycle. Rather than focussing on trying to stop binge eating, instead you can focus on finding other ways to manage emotions, find a balanced weight maintenance diet, and work on body image concerns. Binge eating is usually very quickly reduced, if not eliminated.
Some people worry about this approach, particularly if they are overweight. This can be even harder if a GP or family member is suggesting you need to lose weight. However, if you look at the cycle, you can see how tough it is to stop binge eating if weight loss is the focus. In fact, you are more likely to experience weight gain due to binge eating. If you can focus on weight maintenance, you may find that you are able to be accepting of your body, and that your health improves because you are eating in a balanced way, without your weight yo-yoing. If you still wish to lose weight, and this would be recommended by a health professional, our dietitians can help you develop a safe and gentle weight loss plan which is less likely to trigger the binge cycle - as long as you continue to practise the skills you learned which helped you stop bingeing in the first place.