How to Stop Weekend Binge Eating (Hint: You Don’t Need More Willpower)
“I eat so good all week but when the weekend rolls around, I can’t stop binge eating.”
For well-meaning eaters, it’s especially frustrating to be mindful and careful about your food choices all week only to lose control of your eating on the weekends. It’s disheartening to see your weekday efforts get undone; plus, weekend bingeing and overeating often triggers a downward shame spiral that can make you feel isolated and stressed, leaving you even more vulnerable to further emotional, stressed-based eating.
Why does this happen? And, more importantly, how can you break this wearisome cycle and make feel-good food choices on both the weekdays and weekends alike? Here are some things to consider along with some helpful tips to help you stop weekend bingeing.
First, Is It Overeating or Is It Bingeing?
Clinically, when we talk about bingeing, we’re referring to eating an amount of food that is significantly larger than what most people would consume in a particular timeframe (for example, over the course of a two-hour period). Typically, one feels a loss of control of their eating while bingeing along with feelings of shame, distress, or guilt.
If bingeing behaviors occur at least once a week for three months or more, it may qualify as a type of eating disorder called binge eating disorder (BED). However, it’s possible to experience bingeing behaviors without meeting the criteria for an eating disorder diagnosis.
Also, many people colloquially refer to eating that leaves them feeling uncomfortably full or that contains lots of seemingly ‘forbidden foods’ as a binge. The tips and considerations I share below can be helpful no matter where you fall on the overeating or bingeing spectrum.
(If you’re concerned you may have BED, I suggest reaching out to your doctor or a dietitian, along with consulting these helpful resources.)
Why More Willpower Won’t Help You Stop Weekend Bingeing (and What Can)
It’s normal for weekend eating to look a bit different than weekday eating since there are a lot more social events, we may do less cooking at home, or be out of our usual routines. However, if there’s a big difference between what and/or how much you eat during the week versus the weekends, you may be stuck in a restrict-binge pattern with food.
Believe it or not, while many people, especially dieters, tend to blame their overeating and bingeing on lack of willpower or self-control, restrictive eating practices may be the single biggest culprit. The reasons are twofold.
When your diet is overly restrictive, you may not be consuming enough calories to support your body’s energy needs. Most common diets, for example, prescribe a caloric intake that’s much too low for fully functioning adults, essentially imposing a form of semi-starvation that will trigger a biological drive to eat. After all, food is essential to survival.
Psychologically speaking, our brains respond to deprivation and scarcity (there’s a reason why scarcity-based marketing tactics are so effective!). Studies have shown that, as counterintuitive as it may seem, depriving ourselves of certain foods—as is common with dieting or restrictive eating patterns—can trigger massive cravings, overeating, or compulsive eating behaviors.
The simplest way to understand this is to think of a pendulum. When we restrict overall calories or certain foods, we’re essentially pulling our eating pendulum far back to one side. When you let a pendulum go, however, it doesn’t just drop immediately to the middle. Instead, it swings far out to the opposite side.
In eating terms, that typically means you’ll end up overeating or bingeing in response to restriction and deprivation. Since the typical response to weekend bingeing is to double down on the restriction come Monday, most people will end up swinging wildly back and forth between the two eating extremes.
Liberalize Your Weekday Diet
If you struggle with weekend binge eating then, it’s important to consider whether you’re being too rigid and restrictive with your food choices throughout the week.
Examples of being overly restrictive, might look like limiting yourself to a caloric intake that’s too low to meet your body’s needs, not eating regularly throughout the day, trying to cut out bunches and bunches of foods in the name of weight loss, only allowing yourself to eat specific, “safe” foods, periods of fasting, or other similar behaviors.
If you’re shaking your head yes to any of these common behaviors, it may be time to liberalize your diet by eating more food, more consistently, or by allowing yourself to enjoy some previously forbidden foods.
Beware “Diet Starts Monday” and Similar Thought Patterns
Believe it or not, overeating and bingeing behaviors don’t just happen when you’re physically restricting food by not allowing yourself to eat. It can also happen when you simply think about restricting—even if you’re actually eating the food.
If that’s hard to wrap your mind around, consider this.
If you’ve ever told yourself that “come Monday” you’ll go on a diet, cut out sugar, or otherwise restrict your eating in some way… only to proceed in devouring all the foods you plan to cut out between now and Monday, that’s a great example of the power and common effect of even just thinking about restricting food.
Conversely, if you tell yourself that weekends are for “cheating” on your diet or healthy eating plans, you’re mentally implying that you’ll “get back on track” or tighten up the rains on Monday. This is yet another example of mental restriction that’s likely to lead to overeating or bingeing.
Instead, remind yourself that all foods can fit in a health-promoting diet no matter the day of the week and practice mindfully tuning into your hunger and fullness cues and how you’d like to feel with food.
Make Sure You’re Eating Plenty of Carbs
I know diet culture loves to hate on carbs. But the truth is, we need them. Carbs are our bodies’ primary source of energy, and the primary source of fuel for our brains, red blood cells, and nervous system.
I’ll spare you the complex nutrition science but suffice it to say that when you don’t provide your body with enough fuel through carbs, your body will first compensate by breaking down protein stores from your muscles and other tissues. This is less than ideal since higher muscle mass is linked with increased longevity! Following that, it will perform what I think of as an “expensive” workaround to convert fatty acids into fuel for your brain.
The bottom line is that carbs are essential for our bodies.
They also tend to make meals more satisfying, which is important because both satisfaction and physical fullness are key elements for helping you find your comfortable stopping point with food. When you don’t allow yourself to choose satisfying meals that you genuinely want to eat, it’s common to keep eating, looking for that food that will “hit the spot.” In Intuitive Eating, we call this phantom eating.
All of which is to say that if you’re depriving yourself of carbs throughout the week, you may be missing important nutrients and setting yourself up for massive cravings, overeating, or weekend bingeing. Many of my clients see a drop in bingeing behaviors when they welcome sufficient carbs back into their lives.
What To Do When a Lack of Planning or Structure Leads to Weekend Binge Eating
Another common cause of overeating and bingeing that I see with many of my clients is a lack of mealtime structure on weekends, insufficient food or meal planning, or simply not prioritizing helpful or adequate self-care on Saturdays and Sundays.
For example, if you’re too busy and distracted for proper mealtimes on the weekends, you may end up getting overly or urgently hungry, priming yourself to overeat. If you don’t allow yourself sufficient sleep, your body will produce more hunger hormone and less satiety hormone, potentially contributing to weekend grazing or bingeing. If you run out of desirable food in the kitchen by the time Friday rolls around or simply forget to plan for weekend meals, your eating will naturally feel more chaotic, and you may end up choosing foods or amounts of foods that don’t feel great.
Consider your weekend routines and whether there are opportunities for better mealtime structure, meal planning, grocery shopping, or overall self-care that may be helpful?
If so, brainstorm a handful of ideas and practice changing one small behavior at a time. Notice any shifts you feel in your body and whether it helps you feel more in control of your eating over time.
Questions To Ask Yourself After Bingeing or Overeating
The more you can understand about yourself and your eating behaviors, the better equipped you’ll be to make helpful changes in your approach to food.
While it’s certainly easier to unpack your eating experiences with the aid of an Intuitive Eating counselor, therapist, or other skilled professional, you can of course get curious and practice exploring your eating on your own.
Here are a few ways to start:
Check in with your emotions before and after eating to see what you were feeling and how it may have impacted your food choices or eating.
Consider your food talk and beliefs about the foods you ate. Were you saying things like “I shouldn’t be eating this,” “I have no willpower,” or “this food is bad or not on my diet?” If so, those are all signs that you may be mentally restricting food.
What were the circumstances surrounding your eating? Were you busy, stressed, or distracted? Did you allow yourself to get overly hungry? Were you having an argument or heated discussion with a friend, loved one, or dining companion? What impact could these circumstances have had on your eating?
Do you tell yourself you “deserve” to eat certain foods because you’ve had a hard week or are celebrating something? Or do you feel irritated or frustrated with how your diet or clean eating plans are going and think something along the lines of, “fork it, I’m tired of this and going to eat whatever I want?” If so, those are signs of entitlement or rebellious eating.
The point of getting curious is not to judge or to beat yourself up but to non-judgmentally learn as much as you can about yourself and your eating. I’m forever telling my clients that awareness is the first step of change. You can’t change something if you’re not fully aware of what’s happening, so this process of self-discovery is a critical step to gathering information that can ultimately help you stop overeating and bingeing.
The One Can’t-Miss Step Following A Weekend of Overeating or Bingeing
I want to emphasize that there’s no perfect way of eating. It’s normal to sometimes overeat or to choose foods you wish you hadn’t. If it happens only infrequently, I’d just chalk it up to normal eating and remember that you get another opportunity to make a feel-good choice at your next meal or snack.
If it happens more regularly, however, the tips I’ve shared here can help you minimize overeating and bingeing. You may also want to reach out for support to heal your relationship with food.
In any event, please remember to be compassionate and gentle with yourself when you do overeat or end up uncomfortably full. Being critical and mean to yourself will not help you solve the problem and will likely trigger a downward shame spiral that fuels more unhelpful eating or detracts from your mental and emotional wellbeing.
Remind yourself that learning how to stop overeating or bingeing and always deserving of love and self-respect; this process will take practice, patience, time, and grace. Know that you’re not alone, and you don’t have to stop bingeing on your own either.