You overate last night. Maybe it was cookies from the pantry after the kids finally went to bed. Maybe it was takeout in the car on the drive home because you had nothing left in the tank.
And this morning, your brain already has a plan. “Okay. We’re going to be really careful today. Just a salad for lunch. We’ll skip the snack. We’ll make up for it.”
It feels responsible. It feels like the smart, disciplined thing to do.
I’m here to tell you it’s the exact thing that’s keeping you stuck.
The hidden cycle that drives overeating
The thing I see almost everyone stuck in is called the binge-restrict cycle. It gets talked about mostly with binge eating, but it’s not just binge eating. Overeating, stress eating, emotional eating — they’re all on a spectrum. You might be at one spot on that spectrum now and a different spot next year. That’s normal.
Here’s how the cycle works. Picture a circle.
At one point on the circle, you overeat. After that, you push yourself toward restriction — being extra careful, eating super light, telling yourself you’ll do better. But restriction doesn’t feel good, and it never lasts. So it pushes you right back up toward the next overeating.
Over and over. Out of control, then working really hard to rein it back in. You’re never just on level ground where eating feels simple.
I lived in this cycle for years. I had no clue it even existed, so I made all the same mistakes everyone makes.
The restriction is sneakier than you think
Here’s the part that’s hard to catch. Most of the restriction in this cycle doesn’t even sound like restriction. It sounds like plain facts.
“Of course I’ll just have a salad today — look at what I ate last night.”
“Of course I should fast a little longer this morning.”
“Of course it’s a good idea to just eat some vegetables and skip the rest.”
It sounds like your brain is just reporting the news. But that’s the restriction talking. And your job — the whole job this episode gives you — is to start noticing it and calling it what it is.
Why “just don’t eat” never works
When we try to break this cycle, almost all of us try at the same spot: right before we eat.
You’re standing there, your brain is loud, the food is right there, and you’re trying to talk yourself out of it. “Just don’t. Not this time.”
How’s that worked for you?
If stopping yourself right before eating were easy, you wouldn’t be reading this. By the time you’re at that point, the craving is a train already speeding down the tracks. Telling it “stop” does almost nothing. It takes a ton of energy and a bunch of skills nobody ever taught you.
So you’re trying to break the cycle at the hardest possible place, using a tool that doesn’t work. No wonder it feels impossible.
The beating-yourself-up part has to go
The next mistake we make is after we eat. We get down on ourselves. “I blew it. I never should have done that. I undid everything.”
I know it feels like that self-talk is keeping you in line. It isn’t. It does the opposite.
When you feel ashamed and guilty about your eating, the last thing you want to do is look at it and figure out what happened. It’s too painful. So you just try to forget it and move on — and that keeps you stuck.
We can’t learn anything from a place of shame. And we have to learn in order to get out.
The easiest place to break the cycle
Here’s the good news about a cycle: it’s a circle. Break it anywhere and you’re out.
The simplest place to break it — the one that takes the least effort — is at the restriction.
So the next time your brain offers up “let’s be careful today, just a light salad to make up for last night,” you respond with something like:
Actually, today I’m going to focus on food that really satisfies me. Food that fuels my body.
That’s it. You just refuse to get on the restriction side. Because restriction doesn’t work anyway. You can’t make up for food you already ate. Eating way less today because you overate yesterday doesn’t undo anything — it just sets up the next swing.
If you’re someone who’s really sensitive and almost anything feels like restriction, go even further. Go abundant. Eat food that fuels you AND tastes amazing. Plan a few treats that also work for your body.
In my own life, when I’ve been eating more carbs than usual and I’m getting back to my lower-carb eating, I’ll make a few low-carb crème brûlées and keep them in the fridge. So if I really want something, it’s right there. My days feel full and a little fancy instead of strict. That pulls me even further out of the restriction.
What to do after you overeat
The second place to step out is right after an overeating episode, when the mean voice wants to pile on.
When your brain starts being cruel, you get to say, “Actually, I don’t talk to myself that way anymore.”
I think of it like a toddler. Toddlers say wild things and have meltdowns, and we don’t lose it on them. We just calmly say, “We don’t talk to people like that.” You can do the same thing with that harsh voice in your head.
Then you switch to compassion and curiosity. It sounds like this:
I noticed that after the kids went to bed, I headed to the pantry and ate all those cookies. I wonder what was going on.
That “I wonder what was going on” is everything. How was I feeling before? What was I thinking about? What had my day been like? You’re looking for the patterns. Because most of the time, even when cookies taste good, if they’re not really what you wanted, something else was driving it. You have to be a detective. And you can’t be a detective with tough love.
Get curious about the stressors
The third place to look is the stuff that builds up across your day and pushes you toward overeating. Being tired. Decision fatigue. Feeling rushed and behind all day. Being irritated at someone. Never getting a minute to yourself.
All of it is legit. You don’t have to judge yourself for having feelings. But notice that your brain’s go-to fix for those feelings is food.
And here’s the kind part: your brain isn’t trying to wreck you. It’s trying to help. Food gives you a quick hit of feeling better, so your brain learned to reach for it. The problem is your brain only sees the short term. It doesn’t see how you feel an hour later.
So your job as the detective is to figure out which of those stressors you can actually shift. (That’s a lot of what we do inside my coaching.)
The one question to try
If you do want a tool for the moment right before you eat, here’s the simplest one.
Say to yourself: I notice I really want this food right now. And I could totally have it.
That “I could totally have it” part is the magic. Because you could. You’ve proven that to yourself a hundred times.
Then ask: But what is it that I might really need right now?
When you tell your brain “I can’t have that,” it gives you the finger and keeps going. But when you say “I could totally have it,” the resistance drops — and then you can actually start to hear the real answer.
You’re not failing
If you take one thing from this, let it be this: being stuck in this cycle is not because you’re not working hard enough. You’re probably working harder than you need to.
You just need to put that energy somewhere it actually helps.
Want the full walkthrough? Go listen to this week’s episode of Thriving As A Physician on your favorite podcast app, or by clicking below. I made it for you.
Recent Comments