This food confession comes from one of my Mind Body Green readers, Paige:

Food Confession:

For the past three years my diet consists mostly of clean, organic meats, vegetables, some fruit, and healthy fat. I avoid processed food, sugar, dairy, and even whole grains.

I’m blood type O.

I do not drink alcohol, and do high intensity interval training and weight lifting.

I refuse to eat anything bad.

I decided to “live a little” recently and had “natural” Mexican ice cream. It was delicious but I felt so guilty for days. I haven’t had pizza, pasta, mac and cheese, or French fries in three years!

So, my confession is that I can eat a whole jar of raw almond butter without any hesitation. And I’ve done this more than a handful of times in the past six months.

I obsess over food and I think about my next meal before I’m done with my current meal!

I eat three nourishing meals a day, and then something happens at night. If I don’t have almond butter on hand, I can do damage with raw nuts or coconut flakes.

It’s so discouraging because when I don’t binge I look leaner and feel better.

After a night of binging, I get food remorse, and am so full beyond disgust.

The next morning I have a low-grade headache and feel sluggish and bloated all day.

My response:

Paige, it sounds like you’ve developed a nourishing food and exercise plan for yourself – congratulations!

It’s great that you’re able to acknowledge that your body needs animal protein.

All of my clients who are blood type O and previously vegetarian or vegan have seen huge improvements after incorporating meat.

I’m celebrating you for honoring your needs and taking such great care of yourself.

Before I dive into strategies to stop binging, I want to give you a little backstory, because I used to be a binge eater:

When I was restricting my food and only eating clean, I could easily binge on thousands of calories in one sitting.

Today, since I never restrict, I can eat a full dessert or part of a dessert here and there, because I always know I can have more, if that’s what my body truly wants.

By giving myself food freedom while maintaining reverence for my nutritional needs, I dissolved the forbidden fruit dynamic.

Binging and even overeating no longer appeal to me in any way, and I eat dessert less often than I used to when I was restricting.

I eat lots of different foods and feel great in my body.

When we binge, it’s usually some combination of the mind screaming for quick pleasure or release, and the body screaming for nutrients.

Based on what you shared with me, your mindset here might be causing your body to rebel, leading you to binge.

Once your mind labels any food as “bad,” your body is more likely to crave that food.

If you allow yourself to have full-size, real treats once in a while, you won’t associate desserts with guilt.

While guilt and stress can be emotional binge triggers, they also interfere with digestion, since they put you into the fight-or-flight nervous system state.

In this state, resources are directed away from your digestive system and toward your heart and other muscles, so you can protect yourself or flee if necessary.

By practicing a relaxed attitude and trusting your intuition, you can eat treats on a regular basis and still feel great in your body. This is a process – it doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s so worth it.

When we label certain foods as bad, we crave them even more than we would if we viewed them as neutral – it’s the classic forbidden fruit dynamic.

Allowing yourself desserts with no judgment eases anxiety and helps prevent binges.

You also might want to experiment with having dessert or another treat early in the day, rather than “being good” and resisting all day, building up tension in your body.

This can help prevent nighttime binges, and gives your body more time to digest.

A restrictive mindset around food will always lead to a binge.

Adapting neutrality toward all foods is key here. That’s your foundation.

From there, if you’re still having nighttime binges, try increasing the amount of nourishing food you eat throughout the day.

Make sure you’re eating every 3-4 hours during the day to maintain blood sugar levels, with protein, complex carbs, and fat at every meal.

By honoring your needs and treating your body with love and compassion, you can create a new relationship with food.

Have a burning food confession?

Email me at lula@lulabrown.com.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

XO,
Lula