Why Your Binging On Food Won't Stop

Binge eating​ is different than emotional eating and overeating. We all overeat and eat to emotionally self soothe at times. Binging includes eating a large amount of food, often very quickly, and to the point of feeling uncomfortable. ​Binging can feel confusing and disorienting.

Today, let's reframe that binging is happening for a reason. It is there to protect you, to support you, to regulate you. There can be many different reasons why binging is happening and keeps happening.

Here are top 2 reasons why binging on food keeps recurring:

1. You're not eating enough throughout the day

An afternoon or evening binge is actually serving a purpose. Perhaps instead of calling it a binge, we can re-define this kind of eating to call it protective eating. When your body does not get enough nutrition, at some point, your body is going to take over and make you eat. After around 6 hours since the last time you ate, your glycogen stores begin to run out. This is where you may notice beginning to make decisions that feel disembodied and irrational as your brain is running out of fuel to make conscious effective decisions.

Reaching for an abundant amount of food may feel like the most rational decision in that moment. This is why you do not need to beat yourself up or judge yourself for engaging in this kind of eating behavior. The judgment comes when you're feeling safe and embodied again. How can you judge yourself for an act you did when you were in a survival mode? Healing patterns of binging means treating yourself with kindness and compassion after this kind of eating is complete AND beginning to attend to why the binging is happening which may mean eating more at breakfast and lunch so the protective eating of the binge is not needed anymore.

2. You were never taught emotions were safe and necessary to express

Hilary Hendel explains that "Current neuroscience suggests that the more emotions and conflicts a person experiences, the more anxiety they feel. That’s due, in part, to the vagus nerve, one of the main emotional centers of the body. It responds to emotions triggered in the mid-brain by sending signals to the heart, lungs and intestines. These signals ready the body to take appropriate and immediate action in the service of survival. The body is ready to react to perceived danger before the person is aware that an emotion has been triggered. It’s the reason why emotions aren’t under our conscious control." That's right. What emotions arise is not under your control. And, you have a choice of how you respond and react to your emotions. When you start to feel the sensations you have connected to the emotion of anxiety or sadness or anger or frustration or disappointment and mentally stop yourself from feeling and welcoming your emotions, this can create distress in the body.

If you were taught that emotions were something to keep to yourself, to barrel through, to be distracted from then binging on food can come in as a way for your emotions to try to get your attention to be expressed. The body is perceiving danger by holding onto your emotions for you. Eating can be a way to relax, a way to self soothe, and also a way to come back into the body to support it in feeling safe. For the binge behavior to change, this means that emotions will need to start to be expressed to release the internal pressure valve. This can be through journaling, dancing, artwork, talking to a friend, family member, or therapist, counselor, or coach. An increase in self expression can guide the body into feeling more relaxed and calm so that the binging behavior can slowly dissipate and be released over time.

It takes time for binging patterns to change. When you begin to explore why you're binging is happening and start to address the underlying reasons, some days binging on food may not happen at all and other days it will. This healing path is not linear. It is like tides of the ocean that will ebb and flow. You just get to focus on one day, one hour, one second at a time.

My Intro to Somatic Eating™ mini course is back on sale for 50% off until Halloween. If you would like more tools in your eating toolbox, this mini course will offer you three new Somatic Eating™ tools to support you with creating a new relationship with food. If you have any questions, as always, email me at support@stephaniemara.com anytime.