Avoiding Binging While On A Strict Diet

[Dlavjr]

I'm no stranger to weight loss, I've done all sorts of diets and calorie counting and I've lost a significant amount of weight since high school. However, as I get older and more into personal development, I find myself pushing to eat more raw foods and do more cardio. My goal is to get as lean and toned as possible. I can usually go a week or so with a near perfect diet, but then I hit a point where I just binge and I don't know why. Should I have one day a week where I eat bigger meals? I thought I'd gotten over binging long ago but the closer I get to my body fat goals the stricter I need to get and it just brings me back into binging. 

[Rigel]

Consider making health your goal instead. 

[Michael569]

Could be that you are simply not eating enough? When you mentioned raw foods, do you base your diet mainly around raw foods or do you also add cooked food? 

[Windappreciator]

Interesting, the more you plainly open up about your unusual vulnerabilities and problems that you fear to get misunderstood or demonized for, the more you will see others framing very similar problems yours.

[soos_mite_ah]

On 6/9/2021 at 11:56 AM, Dlavjr said:

. I can usually go a week or so with a near perfect diet, but then I hit a point where I just binge and I don't know why.

I agree with @Michael569 but I feel like I can expand on this not from a nutritional, what the food is doing to your body point of view but rather from the point of view of what a person's relationship with food is like in general. 

It isn't uncommon for people to go on strict diets to feel the need to binge after a week or so. It doesn't make them lacking in discipline or anything of that nature. When you restrict the types of foods you eat, you start creating this novelty factor towards foods that you are restricted from. Basically, you start wanting what you can't have. And when you suppress your cravings, often times you crave more because of the novelty factor. For instance, let's say you're craving a donut. If you give into that crave then and there, you'll have one donut, But if you deprive yourself for weeks, then when you get the chance to eat a donut like on a cheat day or something, you'll be coming from a scarcity mindset and next thing you know, you'll want to eat 5 donuts because part of you knows that if you can't have donuts later due to restriction, you better take everything in now. 

It's pretty counterintuitive and it might lead to binging more in the short term because you are trying to get yourself out of the scarcity/ restrictive mindset, but in the long term, you'll stop craving and binging foods because it isn't special anymore. 

Also, there are multiple ways to eat healthy. Find something that works for you and that you fully enjoy. If you don't like celery juice, don't make yourself drink that. If you are eating foods that have a sense of variety and that you genuinely love, you will be more focused on what you can eat rather than all of the foods that you can't eat. Therefore, your motivation will come from a more positive place and you'll be coming from a more abundance oriented mindset rather than a scarcity one. If you keep mentally focusing on all of the foods you can't eat, that's all you're going to be thinking of and that will inevitably lead to more cravings. 

Finally, I don't know what your relationship to food is, how restrictive your diet is, or how lean you're trying to get. But if I were you, I would try to check in with myself and try to see if your goals are coming from a healthy place mentally. It's easy to slip into the slope that is feeling insecure with our bodies and then altering our diet and relationship with food in the name of being "healthy" when really it's neurotic and unrealistically restrictive. IMO, it's ok to have some restrictions and have some general guidelines on how to eat but I would personally aim for following a diet only 75% of the time rather than a 100% so that you don't fall under the pitfalls of a restrictive mindset and so that you can still enjoy the rest of life without being uptight about food.