You might not realize that you have this problem or you may even deny it, but binge eating is something that affects many of us in one way or another. If you feel that you can go for a long period of time without eating and consider this to be a good thing, then you may be setting yourself up for this problem. The idea here is that you are eating far more than you really need and therefore introducing too much fat and too many calories in at once. Your body really doesn’t know what to do with all of this, and therefore it’s important to identify the reasons for binge eating and put a stop to them once and for all.
It’s a horrible cycle that can be the leading factor as to why so many people gain weight in the first place. The truth is that many people who do binge eat are doing so without even realizing it. They have a million reasons why they justify it, and though they may not necessarily recognize how harmful it may be, they are sure that they have control over the process. If you are somebody who eats far more than you need at once or has a habit of being so full that you feel sick, then you may want to take a long hard look at this in your own life. This isn’t just being full from eating too much at one meal alone, for this is a recurring problem in your life that seems to keep coming back to haunt you.
It doesn’t matter what may plague you, for getting to the heart of your own reasons for binge eating is what really matters. Everybody is different of course, but here are some common reasons why we tend to eat far more than we really need at once.
Not eating enough and therefore letting yourself get too hungry: If you think that skipping meals is a good way to start the day, then you are truly setting yourself up for failure. The problem is that if you allow yourself to get too hungry you will eat whatever you can find later on. You need to be mindful of this and ensure that you fuel yourself every few hours. If you let yourself get too hungry then this presents a very common reason why we eat too much and therefore welcome binge eating into our lives in the first place.
Feeling deprived through a diet fad or trend: Deprivation can really play some horrible mental games when it comes to weight loss and eating right. If you follow a diet trend that tells you to eat too few calories, then you are depriving yourself no matter how it’s broken down. It’s essential to identify a diet plan or trend as deprivation and stay away from it, for this can set the platform for binge eating because you end up giving into temptation when you can’t get what you want. Never deprive and you won’t turn to binge eating at all!
Turning to food for emotional reasons: This is at the heart of one of the biggest reasons for binge eating. You may have suffered through some trauma or never been able to get control over your emotions. You therefore find it much easier to turn to food than to deal with your feelings or the pain that you are feeling. Emotional eating is often closely associated with binge eating for you can only find comfort over what you can control, and that is often what you eat and how much of it you take in.
Trying to calm your stress through food: If you feel the stress before a big presentation it can take you down two very different paths. You might find that you aren’t hungry at all and therefore skip some meals. Some, however, find that dealing with that stress can only come through eating whatever foods they want. This is another form of control and therefore very closely linked with emotional eating. If this cycle continues too often or if the binge eating gets out of control, that’s when a problem really comes about.
Not getting enough of what you really need and therefore overdoing it all at once: You are craving certain nutrients and you simply aren’t eating enough throughout the day to get them. Your body needs fuel and you feel that giving it all at once will suffice. This is one of the common reasons for binge eating because you feel justified and you are sure that your body needs this form of fuel in one way or another. Taking it in all at once isn’t healthy, it won’t help to sustain you, and it’s at the heart of a horrible long term cycle so try to identify and stop this process before it even starts.