Binge eating after gym

Thommo52

I had my first go at yoga yesterday and was very happy and motivated and looking forward to the next visit to the gym. When I got home I binged on all sorts of high sugar and high fat foods in large quantities, undoing all my hard work. Any suggestions on how to stop this from becoming a habit? I sabotaged myself and am very frustrated about it.

tinkerbellang83

Did you binge because you were hungry, because you were bored or some other reason? The only way you'll ever stop a bad habit is to understand the reason why you're doing it and make better habits.

If it's because you were hungry, are you restricting yourself too much - consider dropping your weight loss rate down and eating a little more or tweaking your macros to feel more full.

If it's out of boredom - find something else to do and don't keep those sorts of things at home.

If it's something else, figure out what, and figure out a solution.

Laurasmartyone

well said Tinkerbellang83! to address behaviour you need to understand the cause of the behaviour - its often our relationship with food that needs to be looked into in more depth!

xandra47

It's a million times easier to replace a bad habit with a good one, then it is to try and just stop a bad habit. I second what tinkerbellang83 posted, gotta figure out the why. Sugar cravings were super hard for me all the time at first. Maybe have a banana with peanut butter as a post workout snack, or a frozen fruit smoothie.

stanmann571

Figuring out the cause is part 1.

But part 0 is not having "bad snacks" around. They're more expensive, but if you must have snacks around get the single serve 100-200 calorie snack packs. If I have a "bag" of gummie bears, I'll eat it. OTOH, if I open a snack pack(75-90 calories--10 pieces or so) That's really all I want/need... and there's no need to figure out what to do with the rest of the bag. Also, I keep variety mixed nuts(Costco-200-300 calorie packs) for when I'm actually rungry and need something to stave that off while I fix dinner.

Obviously YMMV... but planning ahead can help.

bbell1985

Yoga is stretching. You didn't undo the stretching you did by eating. If exercise is going to make you hungry, be prepared for that with a food environment that will not allow you to go too overboard, and pre-log filling meals to meet your goals.

leadslinger17

If you were actually hungry, not the same exercise but I have found sometimes when I run I feel fine beforehand so I don't eat even though it is around mealtime and then I get dizzy or am starving afterwards and overdo it. So if you can stomach it, have a small snack to give you some fuel for your workout (an apple with some peanut butter, or yogurt, handful of nuts, etc) so that afterwards you aren't as tempted to binge.

Colorscheme

I eat before I go to the gym, and then I'm good for a while. So I'll wake up at 8:30 am and eat. Head to the gym at 11 am, get out around noon, eat about an hour or two after that and then eat dinner. Works for me. I also make sure to hydrate [3-5 liters of water a day due to health issues], some of your hunger might actually be thirst.