Starving and binging

JustDoIt987

Hi , so basically during the day I kinda 'fast'. I only eat about 200 calories so that I could eat a lot at night. However , I end up eating all my calories at night and start to feel really bloated , full and just sick. Should I give up on fasting or am I doing something wrong ? BTW, the reason i do this is because I usually go out with friends at night and I never know what we will be eating / drinking , so I save up calories.

ZoneFive

Sounds like you're putting your choice of what you eat and drink in the hands of your friends -- who may or may not care about their health. Make your own choices for yourself. Have a reasonable breakfast and lunch ("reasonable" is your own definition, but should include protein, carbs and some fat). Leave yourself some calories for dinner & drinks -- and you'll have a better chance of not coming home sick and bloated.

kshama2001

Your plan would be fine if you would stop eating just a little sooner. Try taking smaller bites, chewing more, and in general eat more slowly.

mph323

JustDoIt987 wrote: »

Hi , so basically during the day I kinda 'fast'. I only eat about 200 calories so that I could eat a lot at night. However , I end up eating all my calories at night and start to feel really bloated , full and just sick. Should I give up on fasting or am I doing something wrong ? BTW, the reason i do this is because I usually go out with friends at night and I never know what we will be eating / drinking , so I save up calories.

You're doing something wrong Eating until you're bloated and sick every night is a really terrible idea. Not eating (or eating very little) until dinner is fine (it's a type of intermittent fasting) as long as eating that way agrees with you. Clearly this isn't the case, and you would be better off eating more during the day and dialing back the calories in the evening. You can always take part of your meal home and eat it for lunch the next day. Maybe put a hard limit on the number of drinks, especially if drinking leads you to making bad choices around food.

toxikon

There's nothing wrong with intermittent fasting or switching up your meal timing. But it sounds like this particular method just isn't working for you.

I've tried the one-meal-a-day approach, and I found the same thing. I would be so hungry in the evening that I'd binge on junk food and feel bloated.

I find it much easier to do 2 meals a day, or a 16:8 approach. I skip breakfast, eat a modest size lunch, then a good sized dinner. Sometimes with a small snack in-between.

It's all about finding meal-timing that works for you.

jjpptt2

It doesn't really matter. You can probably tweak what you eat/drink in the evenings so you can keep your habits/routines without making yourself feel sick, or you could spread your cals out more if felt that was a better option for you.

Either can work, either is fine... it's personal preference.

MegaMooseEsq

I would strongly suggest that you listen to your body when it says it's starving AND when it feels sick from overeating, and then do what you can to address both of those feelings. Do you track your food and drinks when you go out? It can be tricky, but it IS possible to get a rough sense of what you're eating on nights out. If you're self-conscious about poking around on the app in front of friends, start taking pictures of your food and guesstimating later (it's all going to be rough guesses anyhow). Don't try and make big changes at once, but see if there are some small changes you can make that will help you get a more balanced approach to food. Eating something filling right before going out might help you eat less later - eating at home is pretty much always going to be fewer calories than what you get going out. Can you play with your drink choice to cut down calories there, either by switching to something you drink slower, or something lower calories? I don't advocate jumping right to diet coke and vodka (unless you like that kind of thing), but I found that switching from wine and cocktails to beer and cider made a big difference for me because I can't/don't drink carbonated stuff as quickly. In any case, there are lots of things you can do, so go out and try something! Failing just means you've learned something and to try again or try something else.

Need2Exerc1se

JustDoIt987 wrote: »

Hi , so basically during the day I kinda 'fast'. I only eat about 200 calories so that I could eat a lot at night. However , I end up eating all my calories at night and start to feel really bloated , full and just sick. Should I give up on fasting or am I doing something wrong ? BTW, the reason i do this is because I usually go out with friends at night and I never know what we will be eating / drinking , so I save up calories.

Have you changed what you eat at night? If so, the bloating could be an intolerance to something you are eating. If not then it sounds like you are simply eating too much at once. Just because you go out to eat doesn't mean you have to stuff yourself silly. Just eat until you are full but not overly full.

Moxie42

You can eat light/low-cal during the day without starving yourself, and still have calories left for the evening. Here is what a typical pre-dinner looks like for me if I'm on plan:

* Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled eggs OR yogurt OR fruit (breakfast cals- around 150)
* Lunch Salad w/ lots of greens, tomato, cucumber, feta cheese, olives, and olive oil & vinegar OR soup OR tuna salad on arugula (lunch cals- less than 300)

My daily goal is 1,500 so that leaves over 1,000 cals for dinner/drinks/dessert, maybe a little less if I'm hungry and have fruit, nuts or a 100-cal package of something (chips, crackers, whatever) as a snack.

Things you can try:
* Eating more throughout the day
* If eating more isn't helping, try playing with macros- maybe more protein would help if your usual day-time eating doesn't include much
* Mini-meals. Maybe try having three 100-200 cal mini-meals/snacks throughout the day rather than having one meal and waiting it out until dinnertime.
* Suggest eating at places that have light/healthy meal options. Plan in advance so you can look at the menu before you go, and be able to estimate what you will eat that night (so you know what you can work with during the day)
* Pick low-cal drinks at night. Vodka with soda water and lime is refreshing (though it might take a little getting used to). Or pick something you can sip on for a longer period of time (I will always drink vodka sodas faster than, say, wine)
* Find non-food/drink related activities to do with friends at least some of the time.

buffgrl

Going out late every night is probably not great for your diet for starters, especially if alcohol is involved, but you probably know that already. If you're serious about getting lean and healthy, you shouldn't be "going out" all night more than once a week. Partying too much will absolutely ruin your weight loss efforts unfortunately, sorry to be a buzzkill. Going to bed too late, alcohol, eating crap....you're not going to be in good shape.

Fasting creates excess cortisol in most women, which is something you DON'T want when you're trying to get lean. Fasting as a means of weight loss works better for men, who don't have the delicate hormonal balance that us ladies need to maintain in order for our metabolisms to function optimally. Starving all day so you can "eat whatever you want" at night never works, you will never get lean that way. I just wrote a big thing about Intermittent Fasting and women, if I can find it I will come back and post it here. Your appetite is out of control at night because you've starved all day, so that's not a surprise. You really need to eat at regular intervals throughout the day to avoid imbalance. When you're starving, you're also going to have less willpower over the types of foods you eat, so it's never a good idea to let yourself get that hungry. You may also be using food as a way to deal with stress in your life, such as a way to unwind from a long day. Until you change your relationship with food, the urge to eat more at night is going to plague you.

What also happens when you stuff yourself sick at night and then try to go to bed: your digestive system never gets a chance to rest and your sleep quality suffers, so you get crappy sleep and wake up feeling tired. When you're deprived of quality sleep, the hormones that control appetite and regulate blood sugar get messed up so it becomes that much harder to control your eating later on the next day. Despite this, when you first wake up, you don't feel hungry like you should because your cortisol levels are through the roof and your poor sluggish digestive system is still trying to process the previous night's binge. High cortisol levels artificially suppress hunger in the early part of the day, but as you enter mid-afternoon to evening, they finally drop enough and you are HANGRY! Your leptin and insulin control is all out of whack from bad quality sleep and you're inhibitions are lower because you're TIRED, so you eat everything in sight, and thus the vicious cycle begins again.

So, don't eat a huge meal at night, especially right before bed, because you WILL impair the quality of your sleep, which will set off a hormonal cascade that leads to weight problems and is very bad for your health in general. I should also add that if you're pounding caffeine throughout the day to maintain energy levels, you're making the problem even worse and could end up in a state of adrenal fatigue.

The best thing to do to avoid late night cravings- GO TO BED! If you're sleeping, you can't eat! Sleep is GREAT for weight loss- in fact, if you don't get enough sleep you may not lose weight! Many times sleep is what your body really wants anyway- as you become tired and ready for bed, your brain sends signals that it's time to sleep. You start yawning, eyes feel a little heavy. But if you force yourself to stay awake so you can watch one more episode of Game of Thrones, now your brain is like, "okay, well if we are going to keep staying awake I'm going to need some fuel" and then, you feel "snacky". Also keep in mind that both dehydration AND sleepiness can FEEL like hunger. Ask yourself, "Am I really hungry? Could I eat an apple right now?" if the answer is no, then its FALSE hunger. You need to go to bed! Some of it is habitual too- we create rituals for ourselves, such as snacking while watching our favorite program at night, in which case, you may need to change your ritual.

timtam163

The question is also what exactly you're ordering; even the diviest bar has salads. You're gonna have to overhaul what you're eating in order to not feel bloated. Also, drinking contributes to bloat.

It's one of those unfortunate things that if you stick to a lifestyle that encourages unhealthy habits, you will stay unhealthy. Unless you're committed to cutting way back on drinks, ordering a salad, and calling it a night early, or sticking to going out only one or two nights a week, you won't see a change.

timtam163

P.S. I'm also pretty sure that in order to do intermittent fasting properly, you probably can't rely on fried carby foods. IF goes hand in hand with other dietary interventions; you're more likely to feel ok fasting if you are getting your calories from whole foods and balanced macros. IF isn't a quick fix by itself.

RedSierra

buffgrl wrote: »

Fasting as a means of weight loss works better for men, who don't have the delicate hormonal balance that us ladies need to maintain in order for our metabolisms to function optimally.

Huh? So men don't have hormones that are "delicately balanced" but us ladies do? Not buying this one. Women can fast just as well as men. You made some other good comments but this doesn't fly.

Moxie42 wrote: »

* Suggest eating at places that have light/healthy meal options. Plan in advance so you can look at the menu before you go, and be able to estimate what you will eat that night (so you know what you can work with during the day)

A lot of good suggestions. I like the one about suggesting places with light/healthy meal options. Many places have online menus you can look up.

timtam163

RedSierra wrote: »

buffgrl wrote: »

Fasting as a means of weight loss works better for men, who don't have the delicate hormonal balance that us ladies need to maintain in order for our metabolisms to function optimally.

Huh? So men don't have hormones that are "delicately balanced" but us ladies do? Not buying this one. Women can fast just as well as men. You made some other good comments but this doesn't fly.

The comment was weirdly worded (yes all hormones are delicately balanced), but there really is evidence that women don't tolerate fasting as well as men do--or that our tolerance for it is, well, cyclical. But the main IF studies exclude premenopausal women so data are sorely lacking.