Binge Eating

Binge eating is always associated with food restriction. So many of my women clients are trying to lose weight but struggle with binge eating, which is terrible for their self-esteem. They feel they have no willpower, so there must be something wrong or weak about them.

However if you try to eat too little, your body will override your willpower. Willpower is really a flimsy thing on top of millions of years of evolution getting us to survive famine. You cannot thrive on 1200 calories a day- it is almost certainly going to result in a swing to the other extreme - binge eating whatever calories there are around. Then guilt. And the longer you sustain minimal eating, the more likely the metabolic rate will crash in order to conserve energy (because the body thinks there is a famine).

Better to eat enough food every day, spread over the day, including breakfast, to keep your metabolism running well and your brain feeling safe. The body and brain feel safe if it knows there is plenty of food around, if blood sugar levels stay stable. Then you won't need to binge. Those extreme cravings disappear.

Eating enough protein helps too. And healthy carbs. We need energy! And, please eat breakfast.

When we have enough energy from eating enough, we can make better food choices, and we feel like moving our bodies. We can manage our stress better, and think more clearly. Stress burns up energy too, meaning if we are under a lot of stress, we really need to eat more.

Getting in touch with our own body's intelligence is rarely encouraged by diet books or diet product companies. We end up externalising our authority and losing touch with ourselves. But really, no one can know your body like you. And your body will tell you what it needs if you listen. We really are all different and our needs vary over the day, over the weeks and over years.

So many women are afraid of their own hunger, their own body's signals of needing food, of cravings for carbs or salt (both of which help alleviate stress). But if you listen to them and act on them, the body can relax and will start sending signals of comfort and ease. Then you can make better food decisions.

For a lot of us, that just means being organised enough to have good food in the fridge ready to grab when we are hungry, including healthy snacks. And some balanced meals planned, so we are not resorting to take away or poor food decisions.

Weight loss, if it even happens, can never be sustainable from a place of self hatred, of extreme eating patterns, of chaotic eating and lack of self-care. It needs to come from a place of self-care and balanced eating, a calm brain and balanced blood sugar. Of eating enough good food to feel safe. Then the metabolism can stay running at a high level, and we don't feel the need to overeat either.

This is one of the areas I love to work in. I have found this is an area so many women struggle.