I want to make a post about something really quickly. Kind of a TED Talk, if you will, on my biggest anti-binging tip. It is, quite literally, eating your cravings!
I follow a dietitian on YouTube named Abby Sharp and I love her videos. Before anyone says anything about her past with orthorexia, I want to make it clear that I genuinely watch her videos for educational purposes because they don't trigger that ana voice. Half of the time, I'm watching her while eating and her videos give me a lot of insight on what recovery will entail for me personally.
Anyways, away from the disclaimer. I see on my feed all the time this scenario:
I'm really craving a cookie. Instead of eating cookies I'll have a granola bar instead because I can't just eat one cookie. Damn, it didn't work and now the craving is worse. Good thing I have sugar free candy! I binged...
This is what Abby calls the "satisfaction hunt". I have heard her talk about it in so many videos. Eventually, I gave it a try. I won't say I don't binge anymore, but one craving no longer leads me into a full binge. Basically, when we try to tip toe around our cravings, we end up consuming more trying to chase that satisfaction than if we had just given into a serving of the craving in the first place. I do want to stress A SERVING. Whatever feels comfortable to you.
This is why if you look at my personal calorie diaries, I often include ice cream (even non diet ones), pasta, mashed potatoes, and other foods that a lot of the community deems "fear foods". I'm currently working on ELIMINATING fear foods.
Why? Because when we say a food is "bad" it creates novelty with that food. Now it's a special food and we crave it because we "can't have it". This is a reason why having "cheats days" is actually detrimental to weight loss! When we give ourselves one day to eat all of those foods we've been craving, it reinforces the idea that some foods are good and some foods are bad. The thing is, moderation is the key to weight loss.
I had pasta today and it was FANTASTIC! I love pasta. It is my favorite food. Now, I've had an eating disorder for 6 years. In those 6 years, I made pasta a "no" or would only let myself have frozen pasta meals less than 300kcals. Because of this, cravings for pasta would lead to 3,000 kcal binges and ruin my progress. Since adding pasta into my diet, I haven't binged on it once!
At the same time, I want to talk about something else, making those cravings not only emotionally satisfying, but physically satisfying too. Pasta in itself is not filling for me. Most of the time when I do eat it, I just have a low calorie tomato sauce with it. Today, I threw in some ground tofu in the mix. It only added 55kcals to the meal, but I'm still satisfied 4 hours later.
Another reason why you should start eliminating fear foods and figuring out ways to add them back into your diet is to help you out later. One of my biggest fears with recovery is gaining all of the weight back or more. When I was 17 I was forced into recovery with the threat of being kicked out of my parents' house. I developed a binge disorder and not only gained all the weight back, but 30lbs extra. I'd never been medically overweight, but suddenly I was. When I decide to recover, I want it to be successful the first time for my future wife, children, and myself.
It all goes back to destroying the idea of novelty with your favorite foods. When people recover from restrictive eating disorders, they typically binge all of the foods they wouldn't let themselves have instead of working on restoring hunger cues and healing their bodies and brains. This will further hurt your metabolism. Our metabolisms are already shit! We are already furthering our chances of severe stomach problems. Developing a binge disorder only shocks your metabolism more and is not restoring it.
Personally, I set goals for myself. My latest one was mashed potatoes and I did it. Yes, I used a packaged pre-measured-servings cup with a comfortable calorie count printed on the label, but I still did it. I've defeated that fear food. My next goals are chocolate, avocado, and cheese.
My next step for eliminating binging (as much as someone who restricts can) is ending all or nothing thinking with food. If I go to a restaurant and get a veggie burger, the restricting is over. I binge. That's a post for another time though.
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