Everyday Fitness

I heard a radio segment the other day on binge eating. It's a demon many people come face to face with while trying to lose weight or eat well. From what I've learned in psychology, I'm going to give my take on why binge eating happens in the first place.

Let's look at a smoker. The smoker knows cigarettes are bad for them, yet the body madly craves them. Your body doesn't listen to reason; it wants what it wants and those desires don't disappear because we know better. The smoker can keep the body's desire for a cigarette in check with willpower, for a time. But the body can be pretty persistent..

Now let's look at a dieter; say cheesecake is their cigarettes. Remember, your body doesn't know logic. If the dieter likes cheesecake, telling their body it can't have cheesecake because they're trying to lose weight is a struggle of will. That desire for cheesecake will always be there, nagging at the dieter and making them all the more likely to breaking a very bad way; a binge. At the point of a binge, the dieter can feel ashamed and defeated, dropping their fitness goals altogether.

The best way for the dieter to avoid binging is easy.. Let them eat cake!

By telling your body it can't have certain things, you build up tension. A tension that will one day become too much to handle, and blow its top. Then you eat half a pecan pie and a bag of muffin mix all to yourself. A better alternative is to find a safe and controlled outlet for those cravings. Ask yourself; are you really never going to eat cookies for the rest of your life? Being reasonable helps maintain a proper diet over a lifetime; not just a few months' fad.

I have to give Weight Watchers credit; they recognize that you should still treat yourself to the foods you love while on a diet. Cake in itself is not terrible; surplus calories over a prolonged period of time is. So the key is simply moderation. Go ahead and eat a cookie. At the end of the week, so long as your calories aren't in excess you're completely fine! Not stressing, not worrying, and not repressing your desires help keep a diet manageable and fun; not a chore on the edge of being broken.