Why Doesn’t Restricting Work?
What happens when you are restricting your food intake but then can’t continue to restrict?
This is a common experience for people because it’s very likely that a trigger will lead you to eat again. Triggers are not bad. They just are, but they can make you feel like a failure rather than help you recognize that the restriction itself led to these triggers.
One trigger is boredom, which eating distracts you from and gives you something to do for a little while. Pleasure or discomfort can trigger you too. Your drive to eat is also triggered by conscious or unconscious physical, environmental, and emotional triggers. For example, you may desire to eat because of the smell of appetizing food, noticing that it’s a certain time of day, or when you begin activities that you associate with food.
Eating is a way to escape awareness of critical thoughts, numb uncomfortable emotions, and substitute for unmet needs. And let’s not forget about stress, boredom, guilt, loneliness, anger, or even happiness! You also eat for joy, love, celebration and, of course, to stay alive and nourish your body.
When you restrict, you are dieting. Even if the diet word is dressed up by being called intermittent fasting, it is still a diet using meal skipping to restrict calories. When you go on a diet you probably weigh, measure, and count everything you eat. You may wake up thinking about what you are going to have for dinner so you can plan for breakfast and lunch (if you are allowing yourself to have those meals).
Most of the food you eat probably isn’t even real food, besides all the veggies you are eating. I imagine you feel in control for a while and like you’ve really accomplished something when you lose the weight. Then you notice that you can't stick to the diet for too much longer. You feel like something in your body is taking over and you have no control. Your restriction ends and your binge begins.
What I am getting at here is that restriction leads to wanting more food just because we think we can’t have it, or our minds believe this will be the last chance to get it. A viable alternative is available and you'll learn more in the next post.