9 reasons WHY you're binge eating
With actionable points for change
I write about the psychology of eating disorders. I have personally recovered from bulimia and have worked as a therapist for 20 years. I hope to inspire, educate and improve understanding about eating disorders through my writing. Names used are fictional and stories shared are a combined insight of many client experiences. I believe that full recovery is possible for everyone.
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9 REASONS WHY YOU’RE BINGE EATING
Binge eating is not simply scoffing an extra biscuit, with your morning coffee break.
Instead, it involves eating fast, an extremely large amount of food (more than you would eat for lunch or dinner). It’s usually in secret and can feel like a dissociative or ‘out of body’ experience. You are fully present and grounded on earth, but it can feel as though a demon has swept over you and taken all rational decision making away.
Binge eating can fleetingly bring euphoria and pleasure. This is short-lived before guilt, shame and self-loathing descend like a dark cloud. Plus, the physical consequences of feeling over-full are deeply unpleasant and sometimes painful.
Binge eating can happen across eating disorders and within disordered eating. This means if you have: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder or OSFED (Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorder) – binges can occur.
WHY DO PEOPLE BINGE?
1. Dietary restriction
Binge eating doesn’t usually spring from out of nowhere. In most cases, overly restrictive eating, dieting or deprivation around food have happened pre-binge.
If you restrict your eating, your human design will drive you towards a huge desire to eat. Your hunger will be ferocious and feel out of control, as you are primed for survival to eat following deprivation. As hunter gatherers, when we hadn’t eaten for several days and then food was available, we would have filled our bellies to the brim. There would be no restraint or holding back. Getting fuel in the tank meant life or death.
We know from the Minnesota starvation study post-second-world-war that when men were starved of food (men who didn’t have eating disorders – at least before the experiment), they became very preoccupied with food and many started binge eating. The impact of hunger was described as devastating on mind and body.
So restrictive eating will often inevitably lead to binge eating.
In today’s world, restriction might involve not eating enough food (limiting your calories).
It could be not eating enough variety of food: maybe trying to be super-healthy and cutting out carbohydrates or gluten or dairy and then feeling physically and mentally deprived.
It could be delaying eating till later in the day so your hunger swallows you up in the evening.
It may be a combination of all three.
In a world where thinness remains highly valued, restrictive eating can feel ‘good’ and seductive.
The reality is that as you continue to restrict, you are extremely vulnerable to the back lash of binge eating. This is true for all body types, not just people who are thin or noticeably underweight.
Restriction may feel like a honeymoon of self-control and purity. Putting your body into a mentally and physically deprived place is not sustainable though.
Action points
Notice if you are restricting your eating now.
Are you counting calories, missing out food groups or delaying eating?
Work to reduce restrictive eating by eating enough quantity of food, eating regularly, eating from all food groups and working not to forbid any foods.
Start with baby steps and build slowly out of your comfort zone. Restriction can feel terrifying to let go of.
2. You don’t prioritise your self-care and regular eating
Our culture values productivity and busyness. Cramming your day with endless tasks and to-do lists drives satisfaction and self-worth, often to the detriment of wellbeing and health.
You might be busy, busy, busy all the time. Life feels like an endless to-do list, and you find yourself at the bottom of the priorities, meeting the demands of everyone else first.
This means that you often skip breakfast. You might grab something on the go for lunch which doesn’t sustain you (if you have time to stop at all). Then, the evening arrives and you are understandably ravenous, starving and over-hungry.
You find that once you start eating, you just cannot stop, and your evenings become a frenzied out-of-control haze of numerous trips to the kitchen and endless snacks.
This is in response partly to the physiological need of just simply not eating enough all day. And it’s partly because you are so exhausted from emotional labour and giving out. There has been no room left to self-care in peaceful and soul-giving ways. Instead, food is the quick fix. It is instant, gratifying, and an immediate escape to soothing and peace.
Action points
Start with baby steps towards implementing self-caring eating through the day. Prioritise your eating as you would, if you were feeding a friend, a child or a beloved pet.
Think about foods that sustain you and balance your blood sugar. You will then have improved energy, you will feel more resilient and might even have the headspace to squeeze in a bit of non-food self-care later on.
Start small. If your eating is chaotic, build structure gradually.
3. Sleep
Poor sleep is a trigger for eating with less self-care and attention. It disrupts your hunger hormones, and you will naturally crave sugar and carbohydrates. You will likely lean on these foods to get you through the day when you are weary and exhausted. This can make you vulnerable to binge eating.
Ultimately, you often don’t need food on these days. You need proper rest and high quality sleep, with downtime to recuperate. Food can be the short-cut to bursts of energy when you feel that you haven’t had time to rest. If you have a child who isn’t sleeping or you’ve going through a stressful time, food might bridge you through this phase. It’s not ideal long-term. Sleep is a fundamental need.
Action points
Going to bed early can feel unsexy and boring. If you’ve had a day full of demands, the evening period offers welcome respite and personal space. Reflect on your self-care and work to see sleep as an investment and a healer in your food relationship.
4. Alcohol
Alcohol and binge eating can become firmly intertwined.
This combination was personally a nemesis for me.
As a student, I would often drink significant volumes of cider on an empty stomach – interestingly allowing liquid calories, which felt permissible.
I would inevitably feel starving hungry after a few drinks, as my blood sugar levels crashed to the floor. I would end up buying takeaways in a drunken stupor which would signal the start of a humongous binge.
The next day, I would have a raging hangover. I would feel physically ill and craving binge foods all over again. Physically, it was a rollercoaster for my body and an emotional one too.
Alcohol can rocket-fuel binge eating and intensify the after impact of self-loathing and self-disgust. I remember feeling huge amounts of shame around this. It was a very lonely and secretive struggle.
Action points
Get curious about the impact of alcohol on your eating. Reflect on how it is impacting binge eating or not.
Think about a baby step to change. Perhaps it’s ensuring that you eat before you start drinking. Perhaps you alternate alcohol with soft drinks or water?
5. Good and bad foods.
If you struggle with binge eating, you will usually possess a mindset around good and bad foods. This will be played out in the dichotomy between foods eaten during a binge and foods eaten at other times.
You might call them good and bad foods. healthy and unhealthy foods or non-binge and binge foods. This is very much a part of the problem.
The ‘bad foods’ become linked with anxiety and over-excitement. They are seductive and forbidden. Just eating them alone can cause a nervous system response that is anticipatory of binge eating. Your body is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. You feel fear and guilt. You end up binge eating.
Action points
Overtime, you need to find a grey area with your eating where all foods can be permitted. This does not mean eating dough-nuts all day but it means letting go of perfection and idealism around your eating.
I have clients who are embedded in orthorexia and over-healthy ideals. And clients who are avoiding carbohydrates or even striving for a carnivore diet, in the pursuit of health. Stripping your eating down to limited foods is not sustainable long-term. It means that certain foods are put on an unnecessary pedestal of desire. They are dreamed about, longed for and fantasised over. They will often be the foods that you binge on.
Instead, gradually allow a larger variety of foods into your meal repertoire. Do this slowly, just one food at a time if needed.
Do it in a structured and supported way, so it doesn’t feel overwhelming.
Years ago, I would have described myself as a self-confessed sugar addict, having to eat every bit of cake, chocolate and cereal in the house during a binge. This is no longer the case, and my cupboard is stocked with an array of all food types. I enjoy them in moderation and peacefully. I have only arrived at this place though gradual reintroducing and allowing of different foods.
6. Chasing perfection around eating.
This expands one step further from good and bad food thinking. The pursuit of a perfect or right-way of eating is often central to the problem of binge eating. Many of my clients who binge eat are pursing some kind of plan that is too strict to sustain over a period of time.
Due to diet and wellness culture, there is a plethora of food information available about what you should and shouldn’t eat. This fuels the idea that there is a superior way to address food intake. Although nutrition is important for health, it is just one part of a larger pie.
There is incredible value in evidence-based nutrition, but what is often missing here is the psychological piece of the puzzle. Intermittent fasting might be helping some people live longer but what about the significant number of people who will start bingeing, chewing and spitting and exhibiting disordered eating behaviours in response to the unsustainable restriction. This is not life enhancing. It is damaging for mental and physical health. We need to be including nuance and relationship-with-food into the wellness picture.
Action point
Recognise if you are pursuing perfect eating.
Think about a more balanced approach to health, including other variables also. Eg: movement, social aspects, relationships, spirituality and self-care.
7. People pleasing.
People with eating disorders are generally exemplary at looking after others and putting others before themselves. Whilst, it is wonderful to be kind, thoughtful and helpful towards others, it’s not so, when it comes at a cost to your mental and physical wellbeing.
Binge eating is often a reaction to a build-up of feelings of anger and frustration. You feel that you cannot express these feelings openly to the people around you. You stuff your feelings down with food. You feel selfish or guilty for having your own needs and you consequently people please again and again.
Action points
Instead, work towards allowing your needs into the equation. You don’t have to become a selfish monster. It’s about balancing the see-saw, to include the needs of others and to balance your needs alongside.
Understand that people pleasing is not authentic. If your relationships are based on suppressing your own needs, people are engaging with a fake version of you. Understanding this has helped me significantly in overcoming people pleasing, as authenticity is one of my highest values.
8. Rebelling against your inner critic.
As human beings, no-one likes to feel criticised and controlled. Not by others and not by our own inner critic either. You might feel that your inner critic is serving you and helping you strive for the pinnale of achievement. In reality, you will likely rebel and push back against it.
If your inner critic has hard and fast rules about what you should and shouldn’t do, you might follow these rules for a while and be the good-person. Eventually, you will grow weary of the rules and rebel.
The rebellion may feel fleetingly freeing and liberating when you binge eat. Subsequently, you will be hard on yourself about the rebellion. This will lead to further self-sabotage and self-punishment, and a likely eroding of self-esteem and a high degree of self-loathing.
Action points
Work towards being kinder and self-compassionate. This is a far more motivating and enjoyable way to navigate your journey.
You would be kind and compassionate to a friend, child or pet. You deserve to be treated in exactly the same way. Start small.
9. Catastrophising setbacks
Recovery from binge eating is not linear. It’s one step forward and two steps back.
If you catastrophise the imperfections of your recovery journey and berate yourself when you veer from the path, you’re likely to throw in the towel and feel hopeless You’ll use language that catastrophises the situation such as ‘It’s a disaster; You’re a mess; You’ve failed.’ You will then feel disappointment and disgust towards your poor self. This will lead to self-punishing behaviours and a great deal of misery.
Action points
Remember that every setback is a learning experience. Every time that you have a blip, you can learn and refine your awareness and the understanding of your triggers.
Binge eating is a coping strategy. Be kind to yourself. In the moment, you are reaching for a well-known and safe life-raft (albeit maladaptive) in the eye of the storm of stress.
You can learn. You can forgive yourself. You can move on. You have not failed. You are an imperfect human (as we all are) on a journey. You will get there.
I hope this has given you some helpful pointers towards understanding your binge eating.
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