This tried-and-tested binge eating hack will transform the way your clients (and yourself) perceive binge foods

“I’m really good for most of the day. It’s the evenings where I lose it. I’ll open a packet and it’s like I can’t stop eating until it’s all gone. I try really hard not to keep those foods in the house because I know if they’re there, I’m going to eat them all. I think I just need some healthy alternatives that I could have instead.”

This is the most common complaint my clients come to me with, and the solution is not healthy alternatives.

In fact, trying to find healthier substitutes for binge foods will only make things worse.

Most of the time, the reason my clients find themselves out of control during the evenings is because they’re putting all sorts of pressure on themselves to make healthy choices during the day. Often they’re eating very little, saying no to foods they want, and relying on caffeine to cover up their hunger.

By the time the dinner dishes are packed up, they’ve been restricting themselves all day and that packet of potato chips in the pantry is calling their name. They may try to fill up on other foods at first, but they usually give in eventually and eat the chips. Or maybe they tell themselves that they’ll just have a little bit, but it never ends up as just a little bit.

They come to me thinking they don’t have enough will power, that they lack self-discipline. And they all inevitably think the solution is… more restriction. They think if I can just tell them exactly what to eat in exactly what amounts and give healthy alternatives for their binge foods, then they’ll be okay.

But that will only fuel the restrict-binge cycle they’re trapped in.

The solution is actually far simpler (although it does requires a massive mindset shift to implement): intentionally eat your binge foods with your meals and snacks during the day.

That’s right. Take whatever it is you binge on at night, be it potato chips, chocolate, biscuits, whatever, and intentionally include it with meals and snacks during the day.

Breakfast might now be your usual porridge, but with chocolate on top. Your morning snack is now your yoghurt and fruit, with biscuits as well. Lunch is leftovers, with potato chips. You get the idea. There’s no limit on how much they’re going to eat of these foods, either. If they want more, they should eat more.

This does 4 things:

• It takes away any secrecy that surrounds these foods. It’s common for my clients to feel ashamed of their binge eating, so they may try to hide it. This secrecy gives the binge foods more power. Putting them on your plate during the day takes away that secrecy.
• It normalizes the foods. My clients give their binge foods enormous power. But when those foods become everyday foods they can eat at any time and in any quantity, the hold that food has over them falls away. My clients will go through a stage where they need to have a lot of these foods initially, but once it’s normalized, they can take it or leave it. They’ve reclaimed the power.
• It helps to physically fill them up. Being hungry does not help anything! Stripping away the extra coffees and eating enough food during the day helps everything. Blood sugar levels, mood, energy, you name it. When you’re eating enough during the day, the drive to binge eat at night doesn’t go away completely, but it does lessen.
• It ends the feeling of restriction. This is all about creating an abundance mindset instead of a scarcity mindset. Most of my clients are unknowingly reinforcing to their bodies (and that caveman part of their brain) that there’s a shortage of this food through trying to resist it. Then when they do eat it they’re telling themselves this is the last time they’ll do this, they won’t buy any more, they’re being so bad, etc.). Eating these foods calmly, during the day, is a way of showing themselves that this food is no big deal. They can have it any old time. It’s nothing special. If they run out, they can get more. The start to register the abundance over time, so the drive to eat those foods right now declines.

My clients will tell me that they’re scared to do this because they are afraid they’ll overeat.

To this I say, “So what?” It’s going to be better to overeat on these foods during the day, when you have other food in your stomach to help slow your blood sugar rise, than at night anyway. And if you actually do eat a whole packet of chocolate biscuits at every meal, how long do you think you can keep that up? I guarantee it won’t be forever. You will get sick of it.

I know it’s scary. It’s downright terrifying for most of my clients. But if you can help them to get through it mentally, eating their binge foods with meals and snacks during the day is extremely effective.