“I Stopped Restricting, Why Am I Still Bingeing?”

This is something I was recently chatting about with a client. She took a leap of faith and started her journey to food freedom!

We worked on getting her to eat consistently throughout the day and making peace with some previously off-limit fear foods.
A big step in this process is allowing yourself to add back in foods you restricted but that’s only 1 piece of the puzzle. 
In the post below I explain reasons why you may still be over eating even when you’ve stopped restricting: 

1. Your emotional needs aren’t met and you are using food to cope: When you are eating in absence of hunger, you may be using food to deal with another unmet need. Identify what emotion is causing you to eat and see if another coping tool would help you better deal with what’s going on. 
2. You only allow yourself the food only under certain circumstances: Eg. you think things like “I can only have 1” or “I can only eat this after I’ve worked out”. This shows you aren’t giving yourself full permission to eat. Without unconditional permission, our body may sense you’ll restrict again so the urge to over eat is still present. 
3. You still think of the food as “bad” when eating it: Labelling food as “good” or “bad” sets you up to feel guilt/shame after. These thoughts are an example of mental restriction which can still trigger you to over eat. 
4. You still aren’t connected to your fullness cues: After extreme restriction, it’s normal to not be in touch with your fullness cues (or to want to ignore them). Your body needs time to recognise that you won’t restrict again. The more you honour your hunger, the easier it is to eat to comfortable fullness. 
5. You’re still in the “honey-moon” phase: It’s normal to over eat in the beginning as this is a normal response to restriction. With time, food will lose its ‘lustre’ and the urge to ‘eat it all now’ will decline because you know you can have it again whenever you want. 

Remember, over eating is not a failure. Get curious rather than judgemental and dig deep to figure out the root cause.  Navigating this journey can feel confusing and scary, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you want support on your journey towards finally healing your relationship with food,join the RTH programs today!