Binge eating episode

I forgive myself and do better tomorrow. Don’t over exercise or over restrict to try to make up for it, it just ends in a vicious cycle. Weight loss is about persistence, not perfection. Keep going, this is just a tiny blip on a long journey.

I would just spend around 10 minutes (maximum) thinking about whether over-eating was worth it to me in that case**, and if not, what had helped create the circumstances when it happened****. Then I'd think about how to handle those circumstances/triggers differently the next time they happened, and reduce the new script vividly in my head a few times to make it more real to me. Then I'd just get back on my normal healthy track as soon as possible, incorporating any changes in plan.

Food isn't sin, so there's no need for expiation or penance; just learn from what happens, and go on with an improved plan. Guilt and self-blame are 100% optional, and trying to "make up for it" can set up bad future experiences.

Just get back on a sensible, manageable, positive plan.

Best wishes!

** Special events and celebrations are sometimes worth eating over maintenance calories, IMO, as long as they're fairly rare. Unless we plan to give up special events with food permanently, during weight loss is a good time to figure out how to handle including some indulgences in our lives.

**** Sometimes, binges happen because of too-strict "dieting". When people cut calories very far, or cut out many, many foods they enjoy, it can make future binges more likely. Taking a slow and steady approach, thinking of how one wants to eat long term to stay at a healthy weight permanently, and figuring out how to do that: That can be a more sustainable route.

Or, sometimes triggers are high stress, lack of sleep, social triggers (people around us eating, doing activities where we normally eat, etc.), boredom, and more. If the problem isn't hunger, the solution isn't food. Instead, it's stress reduction/management, getting better sleep, figuring out new ways of handling social situations, reviving old hobbies or adopting new ones to avoid boredom (particularly good are things that require clean hands, like sketching, needlework or playing a musical instrument; or that create dirty hands, like gardening, painting, or carpentry).

If the trigger actually is hunger/appetite, it can help to review your food diary, and look for patterns: What patterns of eating result in less cravings, what patterns of eating cause more hunger or appetite? Sometimes it's nutrition, or it can be food timing . . . even specific foods that are filling or cause cravings.