Binging has ruined many a weight loss attempt. A binge adds a huge number of calories to a daily count, most probably from junk food or other unhealthy sources. More devastating, though, is the psychological wreckage it leaves in its wake.

Addressing the issue boils down to two simple questions – what leads us to binging, and how do we avoid it?

Why We Binge

A binge is what happens when your futile attempt to deprive yourself of something for a long period of time hits a speed bump.

To begin with, any weight lost through deprivation is temporary.  Once we stop depriving ourselves, whatever weight we’ve lost during that period comes roaring back. This back and forth is the classic definition of a “yo-yo diet” cycle.

A “binge” is often the inciting incident which marks the downturn of any weight loss plan (or the second “yo” in “yo-yo”, so to speak). The actual incident that leads to the binge can be anything.  A problem with family.  A bad day at work or school. An unusually long weight loss plateau, and so on.  Any of these things can make someone who was previously demonstrating a strong will by shutting themselves off from certain foods finally break. You question why you’ve been depriving yourself of a favorite food, and the response is to overcompensate by binging on that very food item.

When the binge is over, you feel guilty, defeated, and often whatever weight loss program you had been so carefully following is quickly and shamefully put aside.  Making you once again feel as if you failed.

Sounds familiar, right?

Sadly, while it may match your experience, only PART of the above is actually true.  Yes, a binge is a reaction to a weight loss plan centered around deprivation.  But in no way should you consider it a personal failure or evidence of your inability to properly lose weight long term.

Instead, let’s focus solely on how to prevent binges in the future.

Keeping the Binge At Bay

First, I nearly made the headline for this article “How can I miss you if you never leave?” … because the main way to prevent binging is to keep the “binge” item in your diet.  If a food is that much of a personal favorite, completely cutting it out of your diet was honestly what lit the fuse right from the start.

While abstaining from a favorite food might be something you can do temporarily, it should come as no surprise that eventually you’re going to really miss it.  And when that longing is combined with a bad day, a poor result on a scale, or any other inciting incident… that battle was one you had lost before you even fought it.  It had nothing to do with so-called “willpower.”

How to avoid this in the future then?  The first step is to look to reduce your triggers. Over time and with experience, you’ll notice which parts of your life drive you towards food.  This is the something worthy of its own blog entry at a later date.  But for now I’ll just say this – no one is perfect, so the best you can do is “reduce” your triggers. No one can eliminate them.

Stop the Deprivation

The real key to defeating future binges comes from the binged food item itself!  Instead of depriving yourself of a favorite food until you inevitably crave it to the point of an explosive eating event, instead, why not simply allow yourself to occasionally partake in that item, as an indulgence?

I’d highly recommend you read my piece on tracking what you eat and both pieces about how to identify foods to change in your diet and the “three R’s of Weight Loss” (which will explain how to make small changes to problem foods) … as they’re all related to this point.  But the idea is simple:  you cannot miss a food enough to binge on it, if you’re already allowing yourself to eat it every now and again. 

I eat dessert when we go out to restaurants.  I allow myself an indulgence of Caramel M&M’s most evenings.  I wouldn’t recommend that for everyone.  But for me? Having a 1 oz serving (11 pieces) of that treat for 133 calories, allows me to easily walk through displays of cookies, candies or all manner of treats even on my worst days… because I know that I’ve got that waiting for me at the end of the day.

People often think that when they binge, they’ve failed. They’ve blown up their weight loss programs to the point of no return.  In fact, a binge is merely evidence that you’ve been playing a game of deprivation a bit too long, and you need to take it a bit easier on yourself.  Lighten up, eat happy and settle on a weight loss program that will work for you long term.  If you can manage that, you’ll find binges will be a thing of the past.