How Your Body Responds to Binge Eating: Part One

In today’s blog post, we want to dive into the case study of a patient struggling with binge eating disorder (BED). We’ll explain the difference between overeating and binge eating and then look at this individual’s experience with BED prior to our involvement on her path to recovery.

To start, it’s important to understand the difference between overeating and binge eating.

Overeating occurs when you’ve eaten to fullness, but that one thing looks really good, so you grab a second helping. “Overeating is something that a lot of people do. It’s okay, and it happens, right?,” explains nutritionist Elaina Efird, RDN, CD, CEDRD, CSSD in a YouTube video

Binge eating, however, is characterized by eating more food than a person would typically eat in a discrete period of time. It’s not just adding an extra helping to your plate or eating dessert after a filling dinner. “It’s eating 12 doughnuts, a gallon of ice cream, a whole large pizza, and seven candy bars [in just an hour],” clarifies Elaina. “There are a lot of people who have binges that are upwards of 10,000 calories.” 

Binge eating is also marked by a lack of control during the episode. It often occurs at night when the individual is home alone after a busy day. It’s compulsive, meaning the person recognizes that they’re full and should stop eating but can’t do so. 

Now, let’s consider a case study of an individual dealing with binge eating disorder.

Her evening binges equaled around 5,000 calories and happened at a high frequency (between five and seven times each week). When she first came to The Kahm Clinic, she was frustrated because she tried — and believed that she failed — to fix it on her own. “She wasn’t actually failing,” Elaina says. “She just needed that extra support from a dietician and therapist.” That’s the tricky thing about binging: A lot of people try to convince themselves that they can heal on their own, but it’s best to seek professional help.

Although this individual was frequently binge eating at night, she was unintentionally restricting her calories, or under-eating, during the day. This behavior is common for patients struggling with binge eating! What happens is, they binge in the late afternoon or evening and experience a “binge hangover” the following morning. They wake up with a headache, a stomachache, and no interest in eating breakfast. 

This patient often waited until 1 p.m. to eat anything. She would have a standard lunch, small snack, standard dinner, and then her evening binge. Although this cycle doesn’t occur for all binge eaters, it is common for them to get stuck in this pattern.

It’s important to note that this individual was already in therapy when she first came to The Kahm Clinic.

As we touched on earlier, recovery support for BED should include both a dietitian and a therapist. “Yes, binge eating is physiological. This patient was clearly on a binge-and-restrict cycle,” explains Elaina. “But binge eating is also emotional. In many cases, there’s an emotional aspect behind food that triggers the binge. When you have a physiological piece and an emotional piece, it creates a perfect storm.”

Later this month, we’ll take a closer look at how binge eating impacted this individual’s metabolism and substrate breakdown as well as her treatment journey at The Kahm Clinic.

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To talk to a professional about eating disorder treatment, please reach out to our staff or schedule an appointment at The Kahm Clinic today.