Damage Control--Getting Back on Track After a Food Binge

We’ve all experienced it at some point or another.  Whether we were out with friends, on holidays, had family visiting, at a special event, or just lounging around the house – food cravings got the better of us.

A weekend binge can feel like the biggest set-back ever, but it doesn’t have to be – if you know how to apply some strategic ‘damage control.’

If you use some smart strategies to pick yourself up immediately afterwards you can regain focus and control over your nutrition and avoid excess fat spill-over.

Here are some quick tips to implement the next time you find yourself in this situation.

Reframe Your Mind

Firstly, and very importantly, do not panic. It’s easy to get all wound up because you blew your clean eating and then turn that day long binge into a week-long binge or worse.

Remember, you can’t change the past. What you can change is the future, so let’s wipe the slate clean and move on—you have control from this point forward. There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on what you can’t change and wasting emotional energy on guilty thoughts.

We all tend to over-think things and make them a lot more complicated than they really are. Keep it simple and realize that it’s all about choices – and it can easily be all onwards and upwards from here.

If you can put this cheat behind you and refocus on moving forward, you can stay calm, collected, and composed. That is a big key to long term success.

Drink More Water

When you wake up the next morning after a binge, chances are you’ll be feeling two things: ravenous and bloated.

You’ll be bloated due to the excess carbohydrate consumption you likely took in, along with a high intake of sodium depending on what foods you indulged in.

And, due to the fluctuating level of blood glucose in your body, along with insulin, your hunger will feel likely feel out of control.

Start drinking water immediately upon waking to start to get your body back to a normal status. Not only will the water fill you up making it easier to avoid overeating in the coming hours, but it will also help you combat the water retention and bloating as well.

Water is going to be especially important if alcohol was involved in this binge.

Reduce Carbs and Boost Your Protein

The next step to recovery is to significantly reducing your carbohydrate consumption while you increase your lean protein intake.

You need to avoid topping up your carbohydrate stores so they don’t continue to spill-over into your fat stores. The lean protein will help to rebalance your blood sugar and stop the cravings and hunger. It will also speed up your metabolism and increase your rate of fat burn due to its thermic effect (the amount of calories needed just to digest the food).

Focus On Vegetables

Eat as many vegetables as you can. The fiber will help boost satiety and veggies provide very little calories to your intake.  Furthermore, they will flood your body with nutrients, helping you get back on track from a nutritional point of view.

The foods we tend to binge on are usually quite nutritionally devoid in nature, so this is important to consider.  Not only are you combating fat gain, you’re combating poor nutritional intake.

Put the Extra Calories to Use

Finally, you should plan to get active.

With all the extra carbs and calories in your system now is the perfect time to perform a high intensity workout.  The intense nature will use up excess carbohydrates and glucose floating around your system, it will help to dramatically accelerate your metabolic rate (thus allowing you to burn off any excess calories consumed more easily), and it will put you back in a healthy frame of mind.

Follow the above guidelines for a few days in a row until all the excess carbs are gone from your system. Then continue on in with your usual diet and training regime.

Food binges happen – it’s a part of life for most of us. With this great damage control strategy in place though, a weekend binge doesn’t have to set you back for long (or at all).