Did you know that when we feel depressed we are more likely to lose our appetite than to want to binge?
Surprised? I was too.
I always believed that feeling unhappy and depressed was what made me binge eat. I thought I binged because I felt down, hated my life and hated my body.
Biologically speaking bingeing actually has little to do with feeling low, sad or depressed.
The reason we believe that we want to eat when we are depressed is, paradoxically, because we diet. So many of us chronically under eat (a lot of the time on purpose) on a day to day basis using our will-power, hiding behind our busy schedules or over-exercising. Many of us don’t even believe we are under eating because we are so desperate to be slimmer and completely consumed with our mission to eat less.
Then when the emotional shit hits the fan and something happens in our lives that really throws us off, that sinks us into depression, our mind is suddenly not able to use all of its normal control tactics to keep us eating less. All bets are off and our body begins screaming for food.
Suddenly we are ravenous and all we want to do is eat high calorie snacks and comfort food. Our mind has moved into a different mode – into the ‘IDGAF, couldn’t care less about anything, about who I am, I don’t ever want to get out of bed’ zone. Suddenly the normally oppressive controlling voice of our minds has been switched off and cravings are allowed back in.
When your mind shuts down your body actually starts waking up. This allows it to start self-regulating again after you have spent days, weeks, months trying to force it to survive on less than it requires for optimal functioning. Your mind’s depressed state and inability to maintain control any longer frees your body and you binge, or you find yourself eating way more than you do on a ‘normal’ day.
The most important point here is that it is NOT the low mood or depression that causes bingeing, it is the restriction beforehand.
What does it look like then for someone who is feeling down but who doesn’t normally control their food?
When we eat normally, following our intuition, cravings and natural appetite fluctuations we are feeding our body exactly what it needs. When something difficult happens in our lives and we find ourselves in a low mood or in a depressed state, we become disconnected from our bodies. Very simply put depression is a form of disconnection. When feel low, sad, depressed we feel disconnected from life. Our mind becomes disconnected from our body and the normal messages that go back and forth telling us when and what to eat are no longer being received clearly. We lose interest in life and we lose interest in eating. Think of this example – what do you give to people when a loved one has died? You go round with food, right. You take them food because more often than not they are so overwhelmed with grief they forget to eat.
If you are chronically under eating then trust me you will not be forgetting to eat any time soon.
As I often like to say this blog is more personal and practical rather than scientific but there is a whole heap of research around this topic, so go ahead and do a deep dive online.
But when we think about it logically from an emotional standpoint doesn’t it make so much more sense that if you are in a place where you are less interested in life and feeling disconnected then you would also be less interested in food and eating?
So next time you feel down and you reach for the biscuit tin and then feel even worse…why not ask yourself whether you have really been nourishing your body adequately recently. Ask yourself whether this could be your natural hunger showing up after having been repressed for so long?
Any time we feel the need to over-eat or binge there is something else going on for us. The only time humans really binge is when we have been restricting our food. So if you really want to stop bingeing when you feel down then you need to start eating when you’re up…
Sending you lots of love xxx