Binge Eating, the devil or a useful tool?

Lets be realistic, if you're on a diet, you're probably on it because you love food, maybe even a little too much. The fact is we've all been there, on a diet, uncontrollable urges kick in and we just eat everything in sight. The next few days are made up of guilty feelings and poor attempts of overexercising/undereating to try and control the damage before the urges kick in again and the whole process repeats itself, or the diet ends.

It doesn't have to be like this! While it is expected that a binge can easily go hundreds, even thousands of calories over the intended amount for the day, there are ways to control and prevent the damage so that one does not feel compelled to punish themselves for their gluttony. In fact in lower % bodyfat individuals it is even beneficial to overeat once in a while, sometimes even several times a week at extreme leanness (under 10%). Here are the benefits of a letting your inner fat kid out -

1. It provides a temporary boost in metabolism, even more so in high carb binges (1).
2. It provides a boost in Leptin, this is specifically a problem for people already lean that are dieting to lose the last few %'s of bodyfat or people on a prolonged diet. Low Leptin is effectively the 'starvation' mode of the body where the priority is keeping the body going. This is accompanied by intense hunger and negatively effects things like libido and metabolism.
3. The temporary boost in Leptin is essentially 'tricking' the body back into homeostasis so that fat loss can continue at a normal rate. This is because the body is assuming that the calorie intake is now back on track to regain that lost weight.
4. It's a huge psychological release. Once you get past the mental barrier that you're eating far more than you normally would and relax about it, you begin to realise that it makes continuing with your diet far less stressful and a lot less demanding on your will power.
5. At the end of most diets, people plan a binge to release themselves from the diet, this normally lasts for several days and results in undoing a lot of the work of a diet. By including them into your diet you're setting yourself up for a much easier transition into maintenance mode at the end of the diet.

Preparation

 

So now you're sitting there drooling with images of pizzas and that great genetics ice cream on your mind, just wait a second before you begin to plan your feast as there's a few things to bear in mind -

1. The day before the binge try to eat mostly protein, to use a 2000kcal 40% protein 30% carb 20% fat macronutrient diet as an example, I would attempt to eat 200g protein/50g carb/50g fat which comes to a total of 1450 calories the day before the binge. Only do this the day before the binge, if you have starved yourself leading up to the binge you will eat far more.
2. Fasting as much as possible prior to the binge is also beneficial. I strongly recommend this over doing exhaustive amounts of cardio to deplete glycogen stores. This just sets you up to eat even more on your binge as your body will sense a huge energy deficit and in response to this lower Leptin levels further unless you are heavily overweight (2).
3. Eat some protein on the day of the binge a few hours before the feast, this will effect your satiety and result in you eating less. If at a buffet, prioritise high protein/veg foods as this will also result in you eating less. The higher % of protein of the binge, the less fat gain there will be.

Post-Binge

Post-binge you're feeling bloated, the scales have gone up several lbs (don't worry if this happens it's more than likely sodium/water bloat if the steps above have been followed and will dissipate in a few days) and you now wonder what to do to control the damage. Here's what you do -

1. DO NOT go and do excessive amounts of cardio in an attempt to burn off the calories, this will greatly deplete your now topped up muscle glycogen and make the next week of dieting much harder.
2. DO NOT feel guilty or bad about it, the benefits of the odd binge often outweigh the potential bad sides!
3. Continue with your diet as if nothing happened.

When to binge

When and how often depends on your level of leanness. You can look at a rough guide here, these are the maximum amounts that I recommend and what has worked for me and my clients.

18%+ untrained - Once/month

18%+ trained - Bi-Weekly

12-18% - Weekly to Bi-weekly

10-12% - Weekly

<10% - Several times/week

Personally on my last diet, I had one day/week once I got below 12% where I ate double the calories that I normally would while dieting. If anything, this sped up my diet due to the hormonal benefits and made it a lot easier to deal with the hunger. The temptation to cheat on my diet also became a lot easier to handle because I knew that I would be able to eat until I'm full and bloated in a few days time regardless of what happens. If you have problems with uncontrollable binging on your diets try incorporating these guidelines and you may just find those urges disappear.

1. Pubmed (1979) Dietary-induced alterations in thyroid hormone metabolism during overnutrition. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/500814

2. Pubmed (1999) Regulation of body weight in humans. [Online]. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10221987