Just because this advice is oft repeated, does not mean it works! These are the most common binge eating mistakes I see in my work

Binge eating is becoming more recognized in healthcare, which is great. But binge eating is incredibly misunderstood and most health professionals, even dietitians, don’t get any training on how to help someone through it.

So the advice I see health professionals giving out, although well-meaning, unfortunately often misses the mark completely. And worse still, not only do these strategies fail to address the root causes of binge eating, they actually inadvertently sustain the very cycle we’re trying to resolve (the restrict-binge cycle).

If you’re reading this then I know you’re interested in practical strategies that work in the real world for real clients. So let’s go through the top 3 binge eating mistakes I see, why they don’t work, and what to do instead.

Mistake #1. Keeping trigger foods out of the house

This seems to be the fallback of most of my clients. If there’s a food they normally binge on, they try to avoid it. They don’t buy it, or they hide it in a high cupboard or at the back of a dark wardrobe. They think, “Out of sight, out of mind”, but actually the exact opposite occurs!

This approach makes these particular foods “forbidden”. Which just makes them even more ‘special’ (increasing their appeal). And when they do have them, it’s like there’s a giant sale sign on them saying, “You better make the most of this, because this is the last time you’ll ever have it”. We call this the Last Supper effect, and it sparks binges in and of itself.

So instead of keeping tigger foods out of the house, or hidden away, I often suggest my clients do the exact opposite – buy a LOT of their trigger foods, keep them in plain sight, and eat them with regular meals. I know that’s completely terrifying (because they assume they’ll go overboard) but it actually turns these foods from forbidden to ordinary. And my clients go from a restricted mindset around these foods to a mindset of abundance. Eventually they can see a trigger food and it doesn’t trigger them anymore, they can take it or leave it, because these foods are just no big deal anymore.

Mistake #2. Thinking portion control is the answer

Cutting the brownie into little squares, separating the candy into little snaplock baggies, eating off a child-size plate… My clients have been led to believe that if there’s less in front of them, they’ll eat less.

But focusing on portion sizes teaches them to rely on external rules rather than internal cues – essentially it’s saying, “You can’t trust your body to tell you when you’re full”. So they ignore when they feel hungry, they don’t eat till they are full, and they get completely dysregulated in the process! They’re stressing their body out because they aren’t listening to it at all.

Plus, seeing a tiny little portion in front of you makes you deprived just from the visual alone! In fact, it can spark a kind of panic for some of my clients, because they already know they’re not going to be satisfied.

Instead of portion control, I encourage my clients to get back in touch with their hunger and fullness cues instead. This is a step-by-step process though. They’re not able to just flip and switch and suddenly know exactly when they’re hungry and when they’re full after years of suppressing these cues… So we start by eating regular meals and snacks and slowly work our way from there.

Mistake #3. Blaming emotional eating as the main problem

Eating in response to strong emotions is an issue. But it’s not the only issue. A lot of my clients think they binge eat only when they’re sad, or lonely, etc., but when we actually look at the breakdown of the days they binge vs the days they don’t, the pattern is clear – physically not eating enough earlier on in the day is a huge factor!

When you’re hungry, you’re less resilient. You’re more easily stressed, your mood is harder to keep stable, etc. When you combine the biological deprivation from inconsistent (or just straight up restrictive) eating with emotional distress, it’s the perfect binge eating storm.

Whilst I help my clients to develop more ways to deal with their emotions (that don’t rely on food), that’s not the first thing I focus on. We need to make sure they’re eating enough and eating regularly first – only then will they even have the mental capacity to do the mental work around true emotional eating!

The thing is, society in general, and health professionals in particular, have been sold the idea that good health is forged through willpower – rigidly controlling one’s diet and exercise. So of course most people believe that the answer to binge eating is tighter control. But these deprivation-based approaches only reinforce a feeling of restriction, which makes binge eating more likely.

When we understand binge eating as a response to restriction, rather than a failure of discipline, treating it becomes a whole lot easier and helluva lot more effective!

If this approach to binge eating feels right to you, then you’ll love my free online Masterclass: The Roadmap from Disordered Eating to Intuitive Eating (and where weight loss fits in)

If you’re a health professional who is sick of cookie-cutter advice that doesn’t work, and you want a new approach that actually tackles the real causes of disordered eating, you don’t want to miss this. 10 years ago I was wondering if I’d picked the wrong career completely… but now I LOVE what I do because I see my clients heal every day. All through using this approach!

I’ll be going over:

• What IS disordered eating exactly? The silent majority of your clients struggle with it!

• The most overlooked red flags you need to be aware of – they’re so normalized you might not realize you’re missing them

• The 5 simple steps from disordered eating to intuitive eating

• How weight loss fits in, when it happens, and how weight loss meds are changing things…

This opportunity won’t come around again for another 6 months, so save your space today and come armed with all the questions you think sound too silly to ask, or problems you’re facing with your tricky clients – because I’ll answer everything in a Live Q&A at the end! See you there!