by Olesya Novik

As mentioned in last week’s article, there are many different types of eating disorders, and we’ll be going over each of them in detail over the next several weeks. This week, we’ll continue exploring one of the more common disorders, emotional eating.

After reading “Are You an Emotional Eater?,” you should be able to identify whether your emotions influence your eating patterns. If you’ve established that they do, this article is for you.

Here, we’ll talk about one of the possible triggers that may be putting you at risk for disordered, emotional eating or binging. Hopefully, by the time you’re done reading, you’ll have a better understanding of one of the reasons why you overeat and how to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Your Own Worst Enemy

There’s no doubt in my mind that just about everyone reading this article has gone on various kinds of restrictive “diets” in the past. Low carbs, low fat, all “clean,” 4 ounces of protein every 2 hours and nothing but veggies at night… I could go on forever.

A million different reasons for dieting exist, and no matter how “healthy” your diet, if it deprives you of comforting foods (ones you consider “favorite”), you will want to indulge at some point.

This is the backbone of emotional eating. If you don’t allow yourself the foods you’ve grown accustomed to consuming, no matter how many times you tell your conscious mind that what you’re doing is best for your body, your subconscious will still feel deprived.

Instincts vs Reasoning

Now think about this for a minute. Deep down, you’re feeling deprived. Your subconscious mind is convinced that you aren’t getting the kind of nutrition that it needs, simply because it isn’t getting the kind of nutrition that your subconscious mind really wants.

Your body can identify the difference between the two, but not your mind — it functions through habit, not logical reasoning.

This means that no matter how hard you try to resist those cookies sitting on the countertop, your subconscious will tell you that you need them. This voice will often be loud enough to overpower your logical mind, telling your subconscious that you don’t really need the cookies… but in the end, your instincts are stronger than your reasoning, which is why you’ll end up not just eating a cookie, but devouring all dozen of them.

Why All Dozen?

Depriving yourself from your favorite foods for prolonged periods of time ends up “convincing” your subconscious mind that those foods don’t come around very often.

So now, your instincts are telling you that your body not only needs those cookies, but also that they’re a rarity. Of course, your thinking mind realizes that this isn’t so, but in the end, your instincts are stronger — which is why you find yourself standing over the countertop, eating as many cookies as physically possible, as fast as you can.

What happens an hour later? What about the next day?

You feel endless guilt about having binged, and either swear to yourself that it’ll never happen again, or just decide that there’s no sense in bothering with trying to lose weight, you’re bound to “fail” again anyway!

Once a few days (or weeks) pass, you’re back on the wagon, making yet another attempt… that never seems to end any other way than what’s described above. Talk about a vicious cycle!

What This Means to You

Take a minute to really let the above sink in. If it rings a bell with you, how do you think you can stop it? Obviously, if you could just stop depriving yourself, that’d be a start, right?

I know what you’re thinking, “But if I never deprive myself of the peanut butter cups I love so much, how am I supposed to lose fat?!” Well, it’s all about moderation.

Even if you’re a competitor getting ready for a show and have plenty of fat to lose, you can still allow yourself small amounts of your favorite foods, or you can prepare your usual meals in ways that are reminiscent of those peanut butter cups (check out our recipe library for for lots of low carb desserts!).

Do whatever you can to prevent yourself from feeling deprived, because once you do, it isn’t a sustainable lifestyle, and you’ll be much more prone to binging.

There are a few other routes that lead to binging through emotions, and we’ll go over two of them in an upcoming article. For now, I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding the above.

Note: There are many types of eating disorders, and ALL should be treated by a professional. Olicious Life does not make treatment recommendations for any types of eating disorders nor dispense medical advice; only a physician is qualified to determine the proper treatment for any patient. All information within our site and forums is for general education purposes only.