Ep 4: The Restrict/Binge Cycle and How You’ll Get Out Of It

Hi and welcome back! Thank you for joining me again, I’m so happy to have you here.

Today I’m talking about a topic that you’re probably quite familiar with if you’ve read or listened to anything about binge eating, and it’s food restriction.

For most people, being overly restrictive with food is what originally caused their binge eating behavior. It’s what caused them to start feeling urges. They’d go on restrictive diets to try and lose weight and then find themselves rebelling against that diet and eating all the foods they restricted and in large amounts either because they’re genuinely so hungry or because they tell themselves that this is just a one time thing and they won’t be eating those foods again.

Sound familiar?

It’s definitely something that happened to me.

As I talked about in Episode #1, being overly restrictive can show up in two different ways – either by under eating or by not allowing yourself to eat the foods you want to be eating.

When I went on my first diet in college I was doing both but not in a super obvious way. Or at least, it wasn’t obvious to me.

I thought I was eating “the right way.” I was doing what the magazines I was reading at the gym told me to do.

And my main focus during that time, and for so many of the other times I was trying to lose weight later on, was calories.

I would set a calorie goal and then manipulate my eating throughout the day to try and stay within it.

And I didn’t see a problem with it at all.

I would eat enough calories in a day, again, according to the magazines, but knowing what I know now, I would never recommend that anyone else to do what I did.

Like I said, at the time I thought I was doing it exactly right.

But what I was really doing was being overly restrictive and I wasn’t really being as healthy as I thought.

I would eat as little as I could during the day, for breakfast and lunch, because I wanted to save up my calories for later. Then I would eat a good sized dinner, and at night I would eat a bunch of low-fat or low-calorie snacks like Snack Wells and low fat granola bars and smaller versions or smaller portions of candies and things.

I was for sure under eating during the day and probably not getting as much nutrition as my body would have liked for me to have.

What I will give myself credit for though was that I did still allow myself to eat foods that many other people won’t allow themselves to eat when losing weight. I still ate french fries, but I’d just only eat a few. I still ate cookies, but I’d just only eat half of one.

So I wasn’t necessarily cutting out a lot of foods, which is a good thing.

But I’ll tell you, later on, once I was bingeing, I sure did do it then.

Once I realized that I had a problem with binge eating, that’s when I started making certain foods off-limits.

If I had binged on a food multiple times, it would go on my “do not buy” list. I may have even added foods after only bingeing on them one time.

I was blaming the foods for my binges. I thought that if I didn’t eat those foods, then I wouldn’t binge.

But even when I didn’t eat them, I’d still binge.

Because, those foods weren’t the problem.

A big part of the problem was actually me not allowing myself to eat those foods.

I’d feel restricted and deprived after saying I couldn’t eat them for so long.

And those restricted and deprived feelings made me want them even more.

My desire would build and build and eventually, I’d start urging for them.

So at that point I’d say, “screw the list” and buy the food.

But, I likely wouldn’t just buy one food that I hadn’t been allowing, because if I was going to break my rule, I was going to make the most of it.

And, because my desire had built up into an urge, I wasn’t just craving a little bit of the food, I wanted a lot.

And! Because I was only going to allow myself to eat these foods this one time, I wanted to eat as much as I could while I could, before they became “off-limits” again the next day. In my mind, this was my only chance to eat them.

There was urgency, there was scarcity, and all that led me into bingeing on those foods.

And there were for sure times when under eating came into play. It wasn’t super common for me, the other kind of restriction was much more common, but I did do it.

I sometimes wouldn’t allow myself to eat beyond my calorie goal for the day, even if I was hungry.

I would also try to eat less the day after a binge to make up for all that I ate, to try and balance it out, and I would over-exercise too to try and help burn off the calories I ate, and that day-after excessive restriction could set me up to binge again.

So on occasion, my binges would be a result of me not eating enough.

And I kept thinking that if I just kept avoiding those foods and kept only eating x number of calories, whatever I thought was the right amount at that time, then I wouldn’t binge.

But actually, focusing so much on my off-limits list and calories was perpetuating my binge eating.

I had no idea what effect it was having.

I thought I was helping myself when really, I wasn’t at all. I was contributing to the problem.

And for so many people, they’re doing the same thing. They think they’re doing it the right way, because that’s what they were taught by the diets or by other people.

And they get so frustrated when they can’t follow all the food rules, can’t follow the diet, then they get mad at and blame themselves, and just try harder to follow the rules.

But trying harder to follow all the rules isn’t the answer.

It’s letting go of the rules that are making you feel restricted, deprived, and resentful.

It’s not being so strict, so rigid, so inflexible, and so restrictive.

You might think that being that way is helping you to not overeat, not binge, or not gain weight, but it’s not.

Yeah, you might eat well for a few days, or longer but, at some point, if you’re under eating, your brain will urge you to eat more, and if you’re not allowing yourself to eat what you want to eat, you will urge to eat those foods.

You end up creating this cycle of being overly restrictive, then urging for what you’ve been restricting whether it’s fuel or just food you’ve been denying yourself of, then bingeing, then going back to overly restricting by not eating enough or not eating what you want, urging, bingeing, and repeat, repeat, repeat.

So if you want to break the cycle, you’ll need to stop being overly restrictive.

Overly restrictive.

When people hear about the restrict/binge cycle, and that they need to stop restricting to stop feeling the urges to binge, to break the cycle, they sometimes think that means they need to let go of all restrictions.

But that’s not what I’m saying you should do.

Not all restrictions perpetuate the restrict/binge cycle.

It’s only the excessive ones that do, the ones that you don’t want to have, and the ones that your body wants you to stop doing.

Some examples would be not allowing yourself to eat, even if you’re hungry, so you’re restricting fuel from your body.

Or not allowing yourself to eat foods you like to eat and telling yourself you can’t, you shouldn’t, or that you have to eat something else, even though you don’t actually want to. So you’re restricting yourself from eating what you want.

Those are the kinds of restrictions that are going to lead to you to feeling urges to binge.

But, there are also restrictions that aren’t going to.

They could be restrictions such as not eating more when you feel full. You’re restricting the amount you’re eating but, you’re doing it because it will be good for your body and your mind, so you want to do it. It aligns with your true wants.

Or not eating something you like that you genuinely just aren’t in the mood for in that moment. Not eating it isn’t an excessive restriction, it’s not a restriction that you don’t want to follow, it’s actually one that you do. It aligns with your true wants in that moment.

When you’re doing something that you genuinely want to do, not because you have rules that say you have to, or shouldn’t or can’t, but because you really do want to, then that’s going to be a useful restriction that’s good for your well-being.

I say all this because I don’t want you to be afraid of all restrictions, or to think that you should not have any.

Some are good for you. Some are useful.

Just like it can be good to have other kinds of restrictions in your life, like restricting how late you stay up at night, or how long you stay at a party, or how many hours you work.

Not all restrictions are bad.

And not all food restrictions will lead to bingeing.

Some can actually help you to prevent bingeing.

So the restrict/binge cycle is really the result of putting restrictions on yourself that you don’t want to have, that your body doesn’t want you to have, and ones that leave you feeling deprived, restricted, or resentful, or that leave your body feeling deprived.

If the day after you binge you decide to eat very little food, you’ll most likely be super hungry by the end of the day. You’re not giving your body the food it wants so it’s going to keep sending you signals to get you to eat more.

Then if you still don’t give it that food, your brain gets scared. Your brain’s number one concern is your survival. It wants you to eat properly so your body will get the fuel it needs to function well and if it thinks you’re going to run out of fuel then it’s going to urge you to eat as much as you can.

Also, if you regularly under-eat, it might notice a pattern of being under-fueled and if it does, it might urge you to eat a lot to store up for a future lack of fuel.

Your brain wants to be properly nourished and fueled and if you don’t do that, it will react with urges.

And then there’s the other side of being overly restrictive, which isn’t necessarily about how much food you’re eating.

But what you are and aren’t allowing yourself to eat.

If you don’t eat something, is it because you think you can’t have it? Because, it’s not allowed?

Are you eating foods that you don’t actually want to be eating because you think these are the foods you need to eat to lose weight and you think the foods you want to eat will cause weight gain?

You make foods forbidden which makes you want them even more. You force yourself to eat healthy foods you may not like that much, or follow a diet you don’t enjoy just so you can lose weight.

This is all going to cause a feeling of restricted, deprivation, or resentment within you. And then what is your eventual reaction to these feelings?

Rebellion.

You say, “Screw it all” and you finally eat what you want. But you’re not just going to eat just a small amount, you’re going to make the most of your time eating it, since you’re not going to do it again. Gotta enjoy it while you can!

Then since you’ve already eaten that, you might as well eat other things you don’t normally allow, so you go all in with all the off-limit foods.

So as you can see, it’s not just about how much you’re eating that is the determinant for whether you’re overly restricting or not, but also what you’re allowing yourself to eat and not eat.

So if you want to break out of the restrict/binge cycle, you need to eat enough food and honor your body’s hunger signals.

And, eat foods you like. Eat foods you want to eat and give yourself permission to eat any food you want to.

Nothing should be prohibited.

You shouldn’t cut foods out of your life forever if you genuinely don’t want to, unless of course you have an allergy or intolerance or something like that.

Allow yourself to eat what you want.

You can incorporate all the foods you want into your life in whatever way you want to.

Now, you might then worry that if you do, if you give yourself full permission and allowance to eat what you want, you’ll just eat all unhealthy stuff, all the time, and eat a lot of it.

And I get that you’d think that way because you’ve seen yourself do that so many times.

But, you have to see why that happened.

It didn’t happen because you were giving yourself full permission and allowance to eat what you want.

It happened because you weren’t.

You ate large amount of those foods, and craved them a lot, because you were making them forbidden or off-limits.

Yes there may have been times when you did allow them but, it was coming after, and likely coming before, you being overly restrictive with them.

So you’re going back and forth between not allowing and allowing, not allowing and allowing.

What I’m suggesting is to stay in allowing.

When they’re allowed, any time you want, there is no urgency, there’s no deprivation or resentment, your desire for them won’t build and build.

Instead, eating those foods wouldn’t be such a big deal, just like it might not be a big deal to eat the foods you do allow yourself to eat.

When you take away the excessive restrictions, you get to relax and actually access what you truly want.

And you don’t really want to eat excessive amounts of those foods. If you did, you likely wouldn’t be here listening to a podcast that teaches you how to eat less of them. You don’t really want to because you don’t feel well physically when you do.

And you probably don’t really want to eat only the unhealthy stuff all the time. Because again, if you did, you wouldn’t feel well physically.

You’ll be able to more easily access these true wants of yours when you stop putting all those overly restrictive rules on yourself.

I personally give myself permission to eat whatever I want whenever I want to. But the truth is that most of the time, I do want to eat foods that will feel good in my body and that will help me to feel energized and not all brain foggy or sluggish.

So yeah, I do sometimes eat foods that aren’t nutrient dense but I also eat foods that are, because that’s how I truly want to be eating.

Sometimes I’m just not in the mood for the unhealthy stuff. Sometimes I’m genuinely in the mood for something with a lot of nutrients.

And I don’t feel urges to binge on all the foods I used to binge on because I don’t create intense desire for them anymore. There’s no more “off-limits” foods. Everything is allowed.

As long as you continue to be overly restrictive with your eating, or not eat properly for your body’s needs, then you’re going to keep creating urges to binge.

So if you do binge, don’t punish yourself by taking away food.

If a binge happens in the beginning of the day, eat again when you feel hungry.

If a binge happens at night, eat when you feel hungry the next day.

Punishing yourself or under-fueling your body is never a good idea.

And if you binge, don’t forbid yourself from eating whatever food you binged on. You’re still allowed to eat the food.

And remember, it’s not the food that’s the problem. It’s you not allowing the food that is the problem. So taking the food away isn’t going to stop you from bingeing again. You could just binge on something else. What you need to do instead is work on not doing what causes you to feel urges to binge in the first place.

If you want to break the binge/restrict cycle, it’s so important to break out of this overly restrictive behavior.

And I do want to acknowledge that doing this can be challenging, and I will be talking much more about how to let go of these restrictions as the podcast continues, but for today, I want you to just understand how being overly restrictive is contributing to your bingeing.

Alright, that’s what I have for you today but, before you leave your podcast app, don’t forget to subscribe or follow so you don’t miss an episode! Have a wonderful week and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye!