Does anyone have tips on how to prevent this from happening?Am I overthinking this?
(I have binge eating tendencies and want to be healthier. But, I am also worried about things going the opposite way if that makes sense.)
If you have BED and wanna try intermittent fasting you have to start really small and work your way to shorter windows. Make your eating window 12 hours to start Like 10am-10pm. Then after a week 11am-10pm then after another week 12pm-10pm etc.
I’m just starting out and I’m also slightly concerned about developing an ED after reading the (now deleted) post from a guy that appeared to have an eating disorder.
My plan is this:
By doing this, before hitting my target weight, I hope to find what will be required to stabilise things without risking dropping under a healthy weight.
Applying the brakes and stabilising might be (mentally) difficult if I manage to lose 40 lbs.
Good question. I have not heard a lot about that with IF practitioners. The closest I have seen several people say that they overeat during their eating window, which sounds like what you are worried about. I would say if you plan your meals carefully and guard against binging you should be okay.
I recognise this concern. I personally tried doing 5:2 (2 days of 500 cal fast a week, normal eating the rest of the time, and realised it really wasn’t working for me as I was really ignoring my body on the fast days, and increasling verging on binging the next day, or the evening before a fast day. I stopped for a while and then tried 16:8 which I find doesn’t seem to effect me in the same way. Sometimes I can feel like I’m getting carried away or feel like I’m pushing my body a lot; so then I feel like it’s time for a short break, eg over the weekend, where I just try to eat sensibly. Good sleep and plenty of protein help me as well. I think the important thing is just to listen to your body.
Hi, speaking from experience, I can say IF helped me in fact with my ED. I also had problems with binging (which I caved in especially late at night, especially carbs and sugar). It turns out this urge was mainly fuelled by a sugar crash because my sugar levels were all over the place. IF is one of the best tools to balance sugar, so from the get go I felt less hungry and the urges kind of mellowed out and felt much more manageable - I’ve lost 101 lb so far and I’m at a healthy 24 IMC, no ED in sight - give it a try!
Do you have a history of an ED? If so, I’d talk to a doctor/therapist before starting in order to get their advice on how to proceed. And maybe even organize a plan for how to start with their help. Also, if it’s not triggering, you could do CICO (calorie counting) when you start IF to ensure you are getting a healthy amount of calories and not overeating or restricting too much. Eventually you will then probably get a feel for an appropriate amount of calorie intake during your feeding window. But, I know CICO can trigger some people with EDs, so if you have a history of an ED, tread cautiously. I have a friend who found she was overeating while doing IF due to fear of getting hungry during her fasting period. She decided IF wasn’t for her. So, if you do try it - I’d second another commenter’s advice that you take it slow, but also pay close attention to yourself and if it doesn’t work for you recognize it’s ok. Like a lot of things in the world, it isn’t for everyone. You just gotta find what works for you. Good luck!
Needing to eat all the time IS the eating disorder of modern life. And it pays handsomely to corporate BigFood, BigPharma, & BigMed. They wouldn’t have it any other way. One meal a day in a four hour window without snacks for six years and never been healthier.
i also have issues with binge eating :( i try to make sure when i break my fast my food is super high in protein. I try to eat 60% of my goal weight in grams of protein, and 50% of my current weight in oz of water daily. This helps me alot with feeling the need to binge or with phantom hunger throughout my window
So you’re worried about going too extreme and under-eating, and possibly bingeing afterward if you’re still hungry? My tip for this is to have healthy snacks around, that aren’t as binge-able. Something like celery with peanut butter or almonds / sunflower seeds. They’re all satisfying since they have a high fat content, and less likely to make you ravenous later, since they didn’t crash your blood sugar. Developing self control around food is tough but do-able. You can do it.
Intermittent fasting was really hard for me this time around. I have binge eating issues to. I decided on keto instead. I eat when I’m hungry. I try to skip breakfast but if I’m hungry I eat something small. It’s been 15 days keto I’m down 9 lbs. I started at 265 beginning of year 236 today
I don’t have experience with EDs, but I try to make sure to plan what to do in my fasting window… most of it is spent sleeping, so keeping a healthy sleep schedule helps a lot and staying on schedule makes a big difference. Wake up at the right time, eat on schedule, don’t let yourself get to the point of starving, and try to be mindful of whether those hunger pangs are physical hunger or emotional hunger - if it’s emotional try to find a distraction to keep you busy until it’s time to eat.
I have two days a week that are much earlier mornings than the other days, which means I’m awake without eating for at least 3 hours… I make a big cup of tea (without sugar or anything) and start work, and the work keeps me occupied. If I started my fast at the right time the evening before after a healthy meal, I can manage the hunger for a little longer.
And when you do eat, plan your meals! I know they say “you can eat anything during your eating window” but it’s counter productive if you’re just eating junk. Try to eat healthy, filling meals, which is especially important for the last meal before you fast, since that’s the meal that needs to carry you through your fast. I learned the hard way that I can’t just eat a bowl of fruit… I need something substantial with a decent amount of protein or I’m hating life. If you keep things balanced, the urge to binge may be less of an issue.
For my fasting window, I also keep my favorite tea on hand and my evening ritual before bed is having a cup of tea with a squirt of liquid melatonin. The tea has chicory so it isn’t a completely clean fast but it tastes good and tricks my brain into thinking I’m snacking (my old routine used to be a sweet snack before bed). I’ve lost 10 pounds so far.
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Good luck!
I started to notice yeah after a while I’d feel guilty about breaking for a day early.
So I started just doing cheat weeks to take a break.
But more importantly I now notice the guilt and know what to do about it so its not as effective.
It’s not an eating disorder but am sure if left unchecked it could turn into one
Haha oh man acronyms similarities are confusing I thought you meant erectile disfunction, sure not a funny subject but I finally caught on. I honestly eat less on IF and when I do eat it’s better food. After a fast I may have some sweets but it’s 1/2 a cookie instead of 4 and I am satisfied. I think you will be good. Haha once again I was totally thinking about the wrong ED.
First of all, what’s your diet like now? If you’re eating 3 meals a day + snacks, step one is simply no snacks.
Step two is start pushing your meals closer together. Breakfast one hour a day later or dinner one hour a day earlier. You don’t have to do the same schedule every day. Some people say it’s good to switch it up.
Keep compressing your meals closer together until it’s comfortable for you to eat two meals.
To make this much much much easier, consider doing what others have said, and combining it with keto. If you don’t want to do keto, then consider at least doing a whole foods diet, so nothing with a label on it, nothing that required a factory to make (I’m talking about things that have wheat flour, etc.)
No juice or smoothies. Just eat the vegetables (and/or fruit if you’re not doing keto).
Last but not least…what did you used to binge eat? Was it mostly refined carbs? If so, that’s another point for keto. I don’t know if I had full-on BED myself, but I’ve definitely had my fair share of bread binges, candy binges, and so on.
I went to a crazy dance festival this weekend. Something like 18 hours of serious dance classes in three days. I can barely walk now. I told myself I could/should eat as much as I wanted. I prepared a gigantic keto meal yesterday and sat at the table ready to wolf it down. My body had other plans. After ingesting a normal portion size of a high fat, moderate protein, low carb meal with fiber too, I couldn’t bring myself to eat another bite. I didn’t have that painful “stuffed” feeling like I did after my whole-loaf-of-bread fiascos. I was just…done eating. Like really done. Like wanted to get more food down but couldn’t.
So, fasting on its own is a great tool. If you also put some effort into what you eat (whether that’s keto, cutting out sugar + artificial sweeteners, focusing on whole foods) it’s like fasting in turbo mode.
If you start to notice really disordered habits around your eating (weighing yourself obsessively, bingeing during your eating window, starving yourself, etc.), then better to talk to a doctor (but a good one, not one that tells you that everything’s okay in moderation — wtf does that even mean?)
Good luck. I know it will go well for you.
I have what I think is an undiagnosed minor binge eating disorder. IF has really helped me regulate that the past couple months. Only time I binge is when I’m high now
I’ve struggled with binge eating for years but personally I’ve found that IF has actually HELPED me greatly reduce the frequency of binges. A few tips that have helped me:
When starting out, focus on mastering your ability to fast clean during your fasting window rather than worrying about what you eat during your eating window. Gin Stephens book “Fast Feast Repeat” is a great resource about clean fasting, but basically the idea is to not have anything except black coffee and water during your fast. No zero calorie/ artificially sweetened drinks, no milk/cream etc in your coffee, no flavoured herbal teas, no gum. Master the art of the clean fast.
Do not try to count calories and do IF at the same time. Counting calories while trying to fast is probably the one thing that has caused me to binge while fasting. I would say this would also go for any other restriction that has caused you to binge before eg don’t try to stick to keto/ low carb/ low fat/ low sugar or whatever either (unless you REALLY need to for medical reason on your dr’s advice etc.) I found that once I started fasting and stopped being super restrictive about what I was eating, just naturally the “bad foods” aren’t as enticing anymore because I know that I’m always able to eat them once my fast is over. Therefore they’re not as addictive and I don’t tend to binge them. Fast clean, but remove restrictions during eating window.
Disclaimer: above is just my personal opinion based on my own experience and is not medical advice 😉
Do 150 mins of intense cardio with heart rate monitor
When you feel to tired (but give 2 months to get used to the workload slowly increasing) to do your routine then you are under eating.
Just eat enough and rest enough to the point you can do 150 mins (3 times per week) with ease.
I used to drop weight too much but tired to do exercises. Then I eat and rest enough to do my workouts. After a while weight will increase but decrease slowly.
I had binge tendencies and IF killed them. Fast Feast Repeat by Gin Stephens talks quite a bit about ED warning signs and avoiding “diet brain”. If I were you I’d consider reading that before trying IF
Don’t do IF. That’s my advice as someone who’s struggled with disordered eating.
There are lots of ways to eat healthier. The problem with IF is that you’re essentially practicing things that make you more vulnerable to an eating disorder, like ignoring your body’s hunger signals.