How to Break the Binge Restrict Cycle

During my recovery, I went through an incredibly challenging time of relearning to trust my body's cues... to be proven, time and time again, that they were not to be trusted. Well, sort of. Basically, when you decide to leave diet culture behind for good, there's still a good few steps to be taken and skills to be learned, and it's by no means an easy journey. But I do know one place to start:

EATING SUFFICIENTLY AND REGULARLY.

It is only once I 

• increased my breakfast size
• added in regular snacks 
• upped my meal times and my portion sizes
• stopped feeling guilty for this! 

That my hunger cues genuinely normalised, my extreme hunger ultimately passes, and the night-time over-eating finally stopped. And I’m not saying that night-time eating is inherently bad, not at all, but the cycle I was in definitely was!

Once you let go of the eating disorder, once you stop restricting... will you keep eating and eating? will you ever feel satisfied? will you gain lots and lots of weight? 

No, yes, and no. 

Your hunger cues may be out of whack initially, but they won't be indefinitely. You may experience extreme hunger initially, but this won't happen indefinitely. You may (have to) gain weight initially, but if you learn to listen to your hunger cues this, too, will come to an end. If you feel like you have eaten too much... 

1. accept that it happened. There is nothing you can do about it anymore now. 
2. ask yourself: did you really overeat (or is it just the ED telling you your hunger was excessive)? Did the episode occur out of nowhere (or had you been eating insufficiently leading up to it)?

If you give up - FULLY give up - the restriction, compensation and food rules... the chances of bingeing are actually very very low! And, if you do overeat, this is just part of your journey, of you re-learning to listen to your body, of you giving your body what it needs at this moment.

But it's not just about the behaviours. The thoughts that accompany this play a massive role too! The more you use the terms “cheating”, “bad”, “guilty pleasure,” etc. to describe what you have eaten and the food choices you have made, 

• the more these beliefs become ingrained, 
• the worse you feel about eating, 
• the more disordered your relationship with food 

Unless you've eaten something poisonous, you are not a 'bad' person for listening to a craving or having a meal out with friends. Wording matters. Food has no moral value!

Once we decide that we want to recover and we want to put on some weight and gain back our health... that's when the real work begins! Suddenly we are bombarded by our body's misguided cues, which we have ignored for so long and which we need to re-learn to understand. Suddenly we experience hunger, mental and physical, and we simply don't know what to do and if it will ever stop. This is a scary time! And, to make it worse, we need to do some things that may seem counterintuitive, like 

1. eating earlier in the day, even if we are *not* hungry 
2. eating nutrient-rich foods, but also adding in some 'junkier' options 

It's a strange path to navigate, but, as I said, you are not alone, and it is possible! And I've definitely got some tips to help you on your way!