Dietitian Busts 7 Common Myths About How To Stop Binge Eating
By Katherine Metzelaar, MSN, RDN, CD
There’s endless amounts of information out there about how to stop binge eating.
Everyone from social media influencers to personal trainers to nurses to body builders and more claim to have the answer to the big question, “how do I stop binge eating?” But the challenge with most of the advice out there is that it’s still rooted in diet culture. And because it’s rooted it diet culture, the advice doesn’t actually work and it leaves you feeling worse off in the long run. Most of the “advice”out there it doesn’t address or resolve the root cause of the binge eating and only leaves you feeling full of guilt and shame. As a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders and helps people heal their relationships to food and their body, I intimately know the difficulty of stopping binge eating patterns. Because of this I want to bust some myths for you and offer some food for thought about how to stop binge eating long-term.
Busting common myths about how to stop binge eating
Myth #1: “Avoiding sugar will prevent binge eating.”
Avoiding sugar will not prevent binge eating. If you are bingeing on sugary foods, you are most likely restricting them. The way to resolve binge eating sweet foods is not to eliminate them, as this causes more cravings, obsessions and long-term more bingeing. Despite people saying, “when I don’t have sweets in the house I don’t think about them or want to eat them” the reality is you will eventually want to be presented with sweet foods because they are a part of life. Being able to feel a greater sense of ease and control around sweets will not come from restricting them more. If you are bingeing on foods that contain sugar, you are mostly likely restricting them in thought or in action.
Myth #2: “Eating less carbs will prevent binge eating.”
Eating less carbs will not prevent binge eating. This is a common myth and a particularly harmful one. It’s harmful because the body and brain need carbs and there are lots of physiological mechanisms in place to assure you get enough carbs. Not only will cutting out carbs in an attempt to decrease the binge eating leave you feeling not so great (low energy, hard to concentrate, irritable), but this will amplify the binge eating. Let me repeat that: Cutting out carbs will worsen the binge eating! If you are bingeing on carbs, you most likely are not eating enough carbs.
Myth #3: “It’s about mind over matter and choosing not to binge.”
Will power will not prevent a binge. The body and brain are very skilled at both making sure that you get enough food and seeking to help you cope with things that feel overwhelming. Will power has nothing to do with binge eating and this myth needs to go. It’s often deeply rooted in anti-fat bias with the assumption that people are fat because they don’t have enough will power, which is simply not true. Placing the blame on you as if binge eating is a character flaw will only leave you feeling a greater sense of shame (there’s something wrong with me) and often leads to even more binge eating.
Myth #4: “Eat more fruits and veggies to fill you up to prevent binge eating.”
Eating fruits and vegetables will not prevent a binge. They will only fill your stomach up and create a sense of fullness. While this may happen for some time and feel like it’s working, it’s only a temporary solution. You cannot trick your body so eventually when you are exposed to foods that are energy dense you will find yourself bingeing on them once again. This is not because you didn’t eat enough fruits and veggies, but rather a desperate cry for more energy from your body and brain. Because fruits and veggies are low in energy, it doesn’t address the need for adequate nourishment to prevent binge eating.
Myth #5: “Go on ‘X’ diet to stop binge eating.”
Dieting and restricting foods will not stop binge eating. What dieting will do though is make the binge eating worse. Dieting leaves the brain and body feeling even more threatened due to lack of food/lack of access to food and will eventually lead to another binge. Going on a diet will only serve to further perpetuate the binge eating. Moving away from dieting is an important and first step to decreasing binge eating.
Myth #6: “Drink lots of water to stop binge eating.”
Drinking water will not prevent binge eating (neither will gum chewing). Similarly to the advice around eating fruits and veggies, you cannot trick your body into not eating and/or not binge eating by drinking water. Despite the felt sense of fullness, this will go away and your body will still have energy needs that need to be met. Remember that no amount of volume in your belly will help you to stop binge eating because it’s not addressing the root cause.
Myth #7: “Don’t eat after ‘X’ time at night to prevent a binge.”
Not eating after a certain time in the evening will not prevent bingeing. In fact, for most people this leads to more bingeing and/or amplifies the binge eating itself. This is because telling yourself that you cannot have certain foods leads to things like “last supper mentality” where it feels like food is scarce and therefore you need to eat as much as possible because tomorrow it won’t be there again.
So then, how do you stop binge eating?
In order to stop binge eating you must address the root cause which is often a combination of two things: food restriction and emotional dysregulation.
Food restriction can show up in many forms. Sometimes it looks like going on an actual diet that is telling you to cut out certain foods or food groups. Food restriction can also show up in lots of sneaky ways. Some of the common ways is limiting the amount of food that you can have, telling yourself that you can’t have a certain food or shouldn’t have it, and setting limits on how much food you consume. Food restriction can also look like not eating enough of a food group, for example carbohydrates or fats. More than anything, in order to decrease binge eating over time it’s ESSENTIAL that you address getting enough food and eating consistently before you can have a full understanding of whether or not the binge eating is being driven exclusively by emotions/emotional responses.
Emotional dysregulation is related to binge eating because binge eating for many has been an adaptive coping tool. And by adaptive I mean that you have had to adapt to environments growing up that were challenging and where there wasn’t a lot of space for your feelings, emotions and experiences. Because of this, as you transition into adulthood, you don’t have many ways to cope with feelings and experiences that feel overwhelming. Binge eating can serve as a way to self soothe (even if just temporary), to numb out and to create a felt sense of temporary relief (think safety) from the flooding of emotions that you may be holding.
Be gentle with yourself.
Learning how to stop binge eating can take time. It’s a process of unlearning and relearning ways to nourish your body as well as learning the ways that binge eating may have served you in times of need to regulate and soothe. Remember that binge eating says nothing about your character as a human and it is not about a lack of will power. Be kind and gentle with yourself as you do the healing work.
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