Why giving yourself permission to eat is critical for beating binge eating
Working predominantly with people who battle with binge eating, I have been privy to the intimate details of their food world. Every client brings a unique story and history of their relationship with food.
The binge food of choice differs from person to person. Many will only binge on sugary foods, for others it’s fried foods and for some it may even be fruit. However, they all have one thing in common: the food they chose to binge on is always on their ‘forbidden’ food list.
Have you ever noticed that you crave your ‘forbidden’ food so deeply that it becomes obsessional? There is a scientifically proven reason for this. When you deprive yourself of a particular food, the power that food has over your willpower intensifies. ‘Habituation’ [1] involves our brain learning to reduce the response to a stimulus when we have increased exposure to it. In other words when we allow ourselves to eat the chocolate, biscuit or crisps as part of a balanced diet, we can begin to reduce its potency.
Dieting, food rules and restriction prevent habituation[2]. When you combine the misery of knowing you are barred from eating a particular food for ever with lack of habituation, intense cravings, overeating and binging are often the outcome.
Of course, a range of elements that must be addressed to finally break the never-ending cycle of restriction and bingeing. But simply giving yourself unconditional permission is a good place to start.
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References
1.Habituation as a determinant of human food intake https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2703585/
2. High reinforcing value of food is related to slow habituation to food