The #1 Thing to Give Up if You’re Ready to Stop Binge Eating…

Here is the ultimate list of what NOT to do, or what you must finally let go of, if you are ready to stop binge eating. This is a series that will include a total of 11 posts, so be sure to tune in for all of the tips!

Restrictive dieting is without question the #1 thing you must stop doing in order to stop binge eating! Not convinced? What if I told you that dieting is said to be the #1 cause of weight gain?

WHAT?! You might be outraged right now. Good. Keep reading…

First, let me clarify what I consider “dieting.” Dieting is any form of restricting your caloric intake, or the types of foods you eat, in order to lose weight. Here are some examples:

Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Optavia, South Beach, Zone, Cabbage Soup Diet (EW – literally WTF?)

And yes also ones considered to be “lifestyle” changes like…

Whole 30, Paleo, Vegan, Keto, Raw Food

…can also be quite restrictive when we are healing from eating disorder behavior and I would consider them to be detrimental to truly healing your relationship with food and your body for the long haul. Do they work for many people? Absolutely. Are they right for you as you recover from binge and emotional eating? Probably not. I’ll expand this point further in a later article in this series.

And most definitely under the category of dieting are:

Counting points, counting calories, counting macronutrients, intermittent fasting (hint: I’ll talk a lot more about this too in a later article in this series!), and juice cleanses.

The main problem is that these diets, food rules, or sets of guidelines and rigid styles of eating are what distort our relationship with food to begin with and ultimately lead to binge eating. 

We are taught by the diet industry to be afraid of food and that we can’t trust ourselves to make our own food choices, so we are given a prescription to follow (a diet), which inevitably fails (99% of diets do) and then we are left with shame, frustration, and the overwhelming desire to consume all of the snacks that were “off-limits” while we were dieting.

Then once we inevitably gain weight, we go back to the source – a new diet! – thinking this diet will be the one. This will work. I’ll keep it off this time. Sure I can cut out pizza, bread, and chocolate for 3 months, no problem. Broken down, the cycle looks like this:

You “stick to the diet” for a while -> you become fed up and lose your precious control -> you overeat everything you’ve been restricting because you missed it so much -> you gain more weight -> you then seek another diet

Does this cycle sound familiar?! What are we doing to ourselves? Wake up, babe!

THIS. DOES. NOT. WORK.

I would know! I did this for a number of years myself. I put my faith in the “experts” to tell me what to eat, how much, at what times, in what ratios, etcetera. I suffered in this “on the wagon/off the wagon” merry go round for years before I realized that I wasn’t actually the problem. That’s right! It turns out I’m not an insatiable beast that can’t be trusted around food. I finally understood that I am only human. And when ANY of us restrict ourselves from eating foods that are satisfying and enjoyable, try too hard to “stay inside the lines” of a diet for too long, or eat less than what we need, our body and mind rebel against that by bingeing and overeating. Your body is so brilliant that it comes equipped with the ability to detect when you are not eating enough to ensure your own survival. 

If you are on a diet, you are at risk for consuming less than what your body requires, mimicking starvation, and your intelligent body will let you know by sending you very powerful urges to eat. 

This is a massive topic I could write a lot more about, and I expand on it deeply in my Binge to Balance Program, but for now just know that the bottom line is this: If you are under-eating, fighting off this life-saving mechanism will likely feel impossible.

The main message of this entire article is that if you are binge eating or eating emotionally, start here and ditch the diet.

You may be asking yourself, well if I’m not supposed to diet, Cina, then what the hell am I supposed to eat? I’ve got you covered, friend. Keep reading the rest of the posts in this series and your new relationship with food will begin to unfold.

I know this is scary. When I stopped dieting I was terrified. I thought I’d gain 40 lbs. just thinking about it. And my clients in my Binge to Balance Group Coaching Program usually freak out when I say this too (and later are completely in love with it). I promise I am not leading you down a free-for-all rabbit hole. Because not dieting doesn’t mean you “eat anything and everything you want.” Keep reading to understand more of what NOT to do so you can finally feel balanced with food.

All my love,

Cina