Ouch! Your best friend got married and you ate and drank enough at the reception to feed a small country! While it’s normal to feel guilty after binging like that, it’s only worse if you’re on a diet or trying to lose a few pounds! So, what’s the answer? How can you overcome binge eating and regain all the wright loss momentum you lost?
First, keep things in proper perspective. If you’re like most people, you probably feel terrible, and you’ve convicned yourself already that your recent binge has already added ten to fifteen pounds to your weight.
To add a pound, you need to consume around 3200 – 3500 calories. There are some fast foods that would only take two or three servings for you to reach this limit, but generally speaking, it’s actually pretty difficult to eat that much in a single sitting. If your binge was world-class, you may have set yourself back a pound or so. Binging isn’t a disaster, as you’ll see when you analyze the actual numbers.
Second, eating your heart out over your binge won’t accomplish a thing. You may honestly believe that the best thing to do after a binge is to starve yourself, both to punish yourself and try to get rid of whatever weight your binge added. This is one of those impulsive responses you need to avoid. When your body senses that it’s being starved, it reacts with a number of survival mechanisms, including slowing down your metabolism to reduce the amount of energy spent. That will help to produce food cravings in you, which could lead to another binging episode.
Your best response to a binge is to return to a wholesome diet of healthy food. Your metabolism will be more consistent and this approach should also help you keep your cravings under control. Make a fun project of it – go to a good supermarket and get yourself nothing but wholesome, nutritious food. Your nutritional profile should improve, and you should also be able to resist the temptation to go on another binge.
Third, drink plenty of water. When you drink lots of water on a regular basis, your stomach feels full, which helps control the cravings. Water also helps flush toxins out of your system. Water’s benefits to humans are numerous, and it’s credited with being a major factor in weight loss.
Fourth, fiber is your friend. Digestive tract problems such as bloating and constipation are common effects of eating too much processed food or junk food. You can avoid such ailments by eating meals rich in dietary fiber. Fiber will also help you to control the cravings that lead to binging.
To ensure the health of your digestive system, eat foods that are high in dietary fiber, because they’ll keep you regular while routinely eliminating toxins and other wastes from your body. Good sources of dietary fiber are things like fresh fruits and vegetables, beans like black beans and kidney beans, and whole-grain products like pasta and breads.
Fifth, take a nice long brisk walk. I hope it doesn’t come as news to you that once you’ve consumed extra calories, you have to work a little harder to get rid of them.
Spend an extra ten or twenty minutes at the gym working out or start taking the stairs at work instead of relying on the elevator. Like so many things, slow and steady wins the race – if you can keep this up over time, you’ll quickly take off any weight gain due to binging.
Binge eating might seem like something that’s real difficult to overcome, but it’s actually fairly easy. All that’s necessary is a decent understanding of what you binged on, followed by a practical plan to deal with the conseque3nces. It’s possible to feel terrible after a binge, but once you calculate the actual calories consumed, you’ll see that you likely didn’t do very much damage.
If you liked this article, you might also be interested in Stop Eating Too Much Sugar, and Diet Solution Program Review