In today’s blog post, I wanted to address binge eating, following a conversation I’ve had with a client during a coaching session recently.

Binge eating is more common than we think, and I often hear from new clients who come to see me telling me that they binge eat and want to stop. Their definition of what binge eating is to them can vary, but it usually includes the following:

• they eat more than they should and feel uncomfortable afterwards

• it’s mostly food that they consider unhealthy

• they can’t seem to stop themselves (there's often a feeling of being on autopilot)

• they feel guilty and ashamed afterwards

• they hide it from their loved ones

It can be eating 2 boxes of biscuits, eating a large pizza and chips, or eating 3 packs of crisps in one sitting. What is being eaten during the binge episode really depends on the person, and so does the frequency.

If that sounds like something you’ve experienced, keep reading as we’re going to dive deeper into this topic 💚

Binge eating is not an easy thing to deal with. It has both a physical and emotional toll - physical because we might feel bloated, uncomfortable, too full. Emotional because it impacts our self-confidence: we feel like we have no willpower and that we're weak around food. We feel guilty and shameful. But you are not alone in this. It’s way more common than you think, even though many people who struggle with it don’t talk about it!

And for having been there, I can tell you that it’s possible to break the binge cycle. I haven’t had a binge eating episode in over 3 years, and you can get there too.

You might have tried different approaches and strategies, which often rest on having more willpower, or controlling your food intake. But we forget that the mind body connection plays a big part here. It’s not just about food (and that’s what we work in my 1:1 Body Freedom coaching programme, we get to see WHY and HOW you eat, without focusing on the WHAT)! So we need a holistic approach to recover from this.

Let’s get started!

Get Support

This has to be the most important advice I can give you when dealing with binge eating: get support. Being supported by a professional is essential when you embark on this journey, as they will be able to give you all the tools and strategies to break the binge cycle. That's what I do with my clients in my 1:1 coaching programme Body Freedom, where we explore the reasons behind the bingeing, and where I give you all the tools for you to be free from the binge.

If you’ve ever been to Weight Watchers classes, or Slimming World, or any of those diet programmes, you’ll have experienced the power of being supported by someone who has been through the same things as you have.

Many of us may have supporting partners, family members, who encourage us. But most of the time, it's not the same, because unless they actually go through it too, they can’t fully understand. And that’s fine, it just means that finding other people who you can discuss this with becomes more important. So, go get yourself some support!

Bring Mindfulness to the Table

The next key I want to share is to understand what triggers those binge eating episodes. Is it stress? Boredom? Tiredness? Loneliness? Journaling and keeping track of what triggers the episodes is a great strategy to start with.

Bringing some mindfulness back into our lives is essential: we do everything so fast these days (me included!) and we barely take time to be present. We often eat while checking emails, at our desk, or watching TV. We don’t take the time to be present with what we are doing, and make eating, even if we do enjoy what we eat, an experience that we rush through. All the clients I have worked with have said a similar thing: “my issue is that I like food too much". But, if we like food so much, shouldn’t we want to make the meal last longer? Shouldn’t we make sure we enjoy every single bite?

That’s the great paradox: those foods that we love so much, be it crisps, chocolate, biscuits, etc… are the ones we eat the fastest, while doing something else. It’s usually because we feel guilty to be eating them in the first place, so we want to make the feeling of guilt as short as possible. But the result is always the same: after one biscuit, eaten in 2 seconds while watching TV, we don’t feel satisfied. Not physically, and not emotionally. So, we keep eating.

I challenge you to be mindful when you have your next meal or your next snack: sit down with your meal without any distractions. Take a moment before diving in and look at your plate - notice the colours, the textures, and the aromas. Take a deep breath and with each bite, focus on the flavours. Put your fork down between bites, and check in with yourself. How does the food taste? Are you satisfied yet?

This was one of the first practices I ever implemented in my own journey, and let me tell you, this changed everything for me!

Learn to Trust your Body

Learning to accept your body is essential for recovery. Not just in terms of how it looks, but also in terms of reconnecting to how it feels, to your hunger cues and satiety cues. Basically, you need to start trusting it again!

That’s an essential step because when we binge eat, we disconnect from our body. We numb our body cues in terms of hunger and fullness, and keep eating even though we're full. A lot of people experience a feeling of eating on autopilot, of not being able to stop before the box of biscuits or bag of crisps is finished, even if they are uncomfortably full, but still unable to stop.

That’s because we're disconnecting from our body. And relearning to connect is so important.

Reframe Your Relationship with Food

The next step is to challenge diet culture myths: for many of us, the binge eating episodes start after being on a restrictive diets. Yep, after restricting food groups you're more likely to start binge eating, especially on the foods that you’ve been forbidding yourself from having.

That's also the danger of labelling foods as "good" or "bad" - restriction of those "bad" foods (whether you're actually restricting them, or feeling guilty and "naughty" when you do eat them) might leave you to binge them, and not be satisfied until you have them.

Talking about food is not enough here; if you’re surrounded by messages about diets, such as restricting food groups, needing to be thin to be healthy, etc... all this might impact your self-confidence and lead you to more bingeing. If you have an "all or nothing" mentality when it comes to food (often another lovely gift from restrictive diets), you might feel like if you have one "bad" food, then your day is ruined and you might just end up having the whole pack of biscuits and regretting it.

Reminder

I’ll end this blog post with a reminder: breaking the binge cycle is possible, it’s not something that you have to struggle with your whole life. What’s important to know is that you’re not alone, more people than you think have the same experience as you do, and there are people out there to help you.

But, it will take time. We’re not here for quick fixes or fad diets, that you can keep up for 5 days before you give up and go back to your old habits. No. We’re here to build new habits (and undo many years of old ones!), that will follow you for the rest of your life. Patience is key, but I know you can get there!

And if doing all of this by yourself feels like a stretch right now and you don’t know where to start, in my Body Freedom 1:1 coaching programme, we work on all those topics to help you break the bingeing cycle. Book your consult here.