I Really Eat Perfectly (When I'm Not Bingeing)

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Georgie: [00:00:00] In college, Kyle went to the gym almost every day. His roommate was a bodybuilder And even though Kyle didn't want to get into competing, he liked training together. They would bench press, do bicep curls and see who could hold a plank for longer than the other. His roommate told him all about which foods were clean or good to eat, and encouraged Kyle to avoid everything else. Chicken, tuna, eggs, plain steamed vegetables, brown rice and protein powders were on the daily menu. Despite what he describes as a moderate partying habit. Kyle stayed fit and liked how he looked in those days. Fast forward 20 years and Kyle isn't feeling as good about his body today. He remembers how he used to eat clean in his college days.

It all seemed so simple back then. What changed? still tries to eat those same foods, but he can't seem to make it last. One day, two days, maybe he can pull off a third, but it always ends up with binging. Usually he gets into trouble with protein fortified cookies, high protein cereal, or some healthy ice cream concoction, or maybe it's a new kind of protein bar, which was just a bit too delicious. Kyle commented to me that it wasn't like he went for fried chicken or a box of cookies. He admitted he didn't relate to the people who struggle with those foods. " I eat really clean", he said "super clean. Even my binges are on healthy things. That's why it's confusing. I'm a fit guy. I'm not overweight. I hit the gym. I'm a healthy eater who binge eats." Kyle's words bring up a number of misconceptions about binge eating and the people who suffer from it. Today we'll delve into why clean eating can lead to or exacerbate binge eating. Plus why it's not uncommon at all for athletes gym girlies, and personal trainers to struggle with binge eating. [00:02:00] This is the breaking up with binge eating podcast, where every listen moves you one step closer to complete food freedom hosted by me, Georgie fear and my team at confident eaters. / Hello, I'm your host, Georgie Fear. I'm joined today by Christina Holland. Both of us know the ins and outs of the fitness industry, and we both have been consumers of fitness and nutrition content and advice in our own efforts to be healthy and look good.

Christina: Hey everybody, like Georgie said, even though we are nutrition coaches, I've been a regular person trying to get fit too. Plus, I've been a staff member at a gym and I definitely have seen plenty of articles, books, and experts on the web telling me how I should be eating.

Georgie: We millennials got a heavy dose of body shaming from Calvin Klein ads - implying we should be really thin, america's next top model- make that tall and thin, followed by the boom of figure competition popularity. Oh, so tall and thin, but also muscular with no body fat, a deep tan and perfectly spherical boobs.

Got it.

Christina: Even before social media was such a huge societal mainstay magazines and television shows told us that people who looked a certain way, ate a certain way, and so if we wanted to look that way, we needed to eat accordingly. Bodybuilding was once a tiny fringe interest, but thanks to social media and new categories like physique and bikini divisions, more people than ever got into physique sports and the 2010s. Along with that came lots of extreme dietary advice, which often was widely accepted, even if it wasn't healthy.

Kyle and his friend were like millions of other men. Trying to eat clean bulk and then cut to attain the [00:04:00] most muscular, lean body they could. The eating patterns of bodybuilders and those who wanted to be like them typically are dominated by a focus on high protein with lower than recommended levels of carbohydrates and fat.

Supplementation is often a major emphasis and expense despite questionable efficacy or safety of various products. But how does a bodybuilding interest set men like Kyle up for binge eating?

Georgie: Well, you might think that they lay on opposite ends of a spectrum, but eating plans modeled after bodybuilding or fitness competition plans are actually remarkably similar to binge eating disorder. Both of these eating styles typically include extremes of high and low energy intake and periods of rigid dietary control, punctuated by periods of losing control over one's food intake. These episodes may be called binges or just cheat days, but they look pretty similar. Tracking macronutrients, feeling obsessed with food and experiencing deep despair or regret after overeating are also common in both groups. or nothing thinking is almost universal, and people who eat according to either pattern. And it's more common than you would think for people who are immersed in fitness and gym culture to develop binge eating or other disordered eating patterns. We work with a lot of people whose life experience includes both of these themes. Fitness and gym culture can function almost like a feeder system, funneling people into disordered eating the same way the fashion industry or elite gymnastics have both inadvertently led to high rates of disordered eating in young people. Not every model gymnast or bodybuilder develops an eating disorder, but the prevalence is certainly high enough to warrant concern. Hyper-focus on appearance combined with competition for very few top positions, and a rejection of body size and genetic diversity doesn't [00:06:00] seem to be a very good recipe for healthy relationships with food.

Christina: But back to Kyle. Let's address one of the misconceptions that we noticed in his communication. He feels like a unicorn. Someone with a unique problem that doesn't fit the mold of a binge eater because he doesn't turn to regular old foods. He loses control and binges, but it's on protein cookies or protein bars.

He may suspect that he needs different treatment than other binge eaters, or that he's a fundamentally different person from our other clients. If you've listened to this podcast, then you've heard us talk about the dangers of food morality labeling. When we think about health food as clean and low nutrition, food as dirty or bad, it's easy to attach that same belief to the people eating those foods.

So it's understandable that Kyle sees his binge eating as different from other binge eaters because it sounds like he assigns morality to food and takes pride in his restraint. I wanna be clear that Kyle didn't say anything that indicated judging other people, but that is one of the angles his brain might take. Through a food morality lens, he might feel like he's actually better than people who binge on regular cookies.

Georgie: This is called ego protective thinking, and it's a way our brains slant incoming data to help protect our self-esteem. If someone is judging themselves really harshly or feeling shame about their binge eating, they're likely to create ideas that make it seem not so bad. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it can create a barrier to accepting help, and it can slow recovery. It can lead to logic like, well, my problem isn't as bad as those people, so I don't need to do what the experts say. Or I don't need to follow the professional's advice, i'm clearly different. But the truth is, binge eating is a problematic behavior no matter the binge food of choice. It doesn't really matter if a person binges on carrots, lettuce, sugar-free gum, protein [00:08:00] smoothies, fast food, or liver worst. Healthy versions of mug cakes or energy balls can be binge foods for some people. Or like Kyle, protein cookies, protein shakes, or protein chips, foods which are marketed specifically with a leanness or muscle building message can become problematic. The issue isn't about the food choice, it's the loss of control and the loss of connection with our intentions. It simply feels awful to have your breaks fail while you're eating. People sometimes say, this might sound weird, Georgie, but I'm actually a personal trainer and I think, nah, that's not the least bit surprising. What they see as an ironic contrast between their fitness profession and their eating behaviors I see as completely understandable. We see it all the time.

Christina: The fitness industry and gym culture are way harsh . Whether it's your job or a hobby, being in that space exposes us to constant appearance evaluations, and comparisons to others. And to make matters worse, it often includes unrealistic ideas about being models of dietary perfection at all times. It can be extra hard to admit you need some help if you feel like everyone expects you to have it all together effortlessly. Not to mention I used to be a part of a bodybuilding gym, not as a bodybuilder, but there's mirrors everywhere and people are constantly practicing their poses and doing their thing to prepare for competition.

And if you're not that you're kind of like wondering, well, like what are they doing? And should I be doing that? Like now I'm looking at myself and comparing myself and looking at myself in the mirror while I work out and it kind of takes away from the reason I'm there anyway. So it can be a tricky environment.

Georgie: the built environment itself with all of those mirrors is, is definitely a factor. I went to a new gym a couple years ago after working out at home for a bunch of years and all of a sudden every woman had these like [00:10:00] matching sets on of like, you know, the scrunch butt shorts and like a sports bra or my favorite, the long sleeve crop top. And I was like, I'm in like running shorts and like an old t-shirt and I'm like, I so don't fit in here.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: This is exactly the sort of thing that I spoke about with Kyle to try and clear up his confusion how a fit guy could possibly have a problem with binge eating. It's actually really common. In fact, it's sort of normalized in gym culture and fitness culture and I use those words interchangeably with bodybuilding 'cause they have sort of meshed together. And a lot of gym culture is, I think the wider society, idolizing bodybuilders without actually wanting to like do all the drugs and step on stage. So. So Kyle spent years emulating his friend, who was actually a bodybuilder. They both tracked their macros, they ate only clean foods sometimes for weeks at a time with no variation, no breaks, but they never checked in with their appetites. They used an app or a calculator to figure out if they should eat more or less. And after competitions, he saw his friend eat entire buckets of fried chicken and like a family sized carton of ice cream. It wasn't unusual. And his friend shared like, oh, that's just part of the sport. That's what everybody does backstage. Like one time Kyle accompanied his friend to a bodybuilding show, and he saw one of the other competitor's spouse was backstage, literally like waiting with a dozen donuts because as soon as the judging was complete, she was gonna dive into them. So strict dieting and binge eating, even if we call it normal for physique competitors, is not normal and it's not conducive to a healthy, flexible, or sustainable lifestyle. Kyle admitted to me, he didn't really know how to eat any other way because even though it had been decades since he was consistently clean, eating those decades [00:12:00] was just him trying and trying and trying unsuccessfully to get back to eating that way.

Christina: Another related misconception that can come from this vein of thinking is that because someone looks fit and isn't in a larger body, they don't struggle with binge eating disorder. This is far from the truth. People of all sizes can suffer from eating disorders. We see that all the time.

Georgie: Mm-hmm.

Christina: So let's talk about what can help Kyle and the millions of other people who get sucked into clean eating mythology, bulking, and cutting phases, cheat days, macro counting, or refeeds. All of these timed, measured, prescriptive eating systems can make us lose touch with the basics.

Am I hungry? Am I satisfied? Am I enjoying this food? How does my body feel when I eat this way? These may seem overly simplistic things to consider, but they're questions that people with disordered eating often cannot answer. And answering them as part of stepping away from binge eating. That's why we work so hard to help people one baby step at a time, recover their ability to feel hunger and fullness without panic, without distress, and consistently meet their needs for enjoyment, fun, and rest in addition to their nutrient requirements.

Learning to tune into yourself rather than tune out and force yourself to follow a meal plan is one of the key steps to no longer needing binge eating.

Georgie: I encouraged Kyle to consider easing up on the rigid restriction that he kept aiming for with his diet. Maybe disallowing so many foods was backfiring. Maybe if he let himself eat and enjoy one candy bar a week that would scratch and itch that he's currently eating 2000 calories of protein bars to address. Naturally, and this is always the case, he will have resistance [00:14:00] to eating in ways which he feels are less healthy. So we need to go slowly and I need to give him time to experience how he feels with a slightly more liberal diet. We don't just wanna jump off the cliff into eat anything all the time. Maybe that looks like including a little bit of white flour here and there, instead of making himself a salad when his wife and kids are all enjoying pizza. Maybe it's using actual salad dressing instead of just lemon or vinegar on salads. These small steps can be downright frightening for people with disordered eating.

So gentleness is paramount. And focusing on how being more flexible with food deflates urges to binge, and what a relief to see that it doesn't cause weight gain. Working with a professional is the only way many people can get through this stage. We need somebody to share our fears with, make sure that they're not just feeding us with the goal to make us fatter, but actually trying to work with us and show us, look, you're not gonna get fatter if you eat this one small, imperfect thing.

Christina: And I think addressing the fear of fat gain in addition to helping them learn how to eat in a way that's, you know, developing that healthy relationship with food.

Georgie: I say that all the time to clients, like, I do not want to make you fat. I want you to be happy and like rocking a bikini and feeling awesome about how you look. Trust me, that this is me trying to help you get there because if we can stop the binge, we're stopping thousands of calories that you don't need and aren't actually enjoying.

Christina: Hmm. A second topic that is important to discuss is that one of the main drivers of disordered eating is body dissatisfaction, but since body dissatisfaction also drives the supplement industry, the weight loss industry, the fitness industry, and many apparel businesses. I'm looking at you shapewear. many companies are financially motivated to make us dissatisfied with our bodies, or at [00:16:00] least keep us dissatisfied.

How do they do that? A lot of it is through advertising, including advertising disguised as influencer created content or education. It might look like an expert is generously showing you a new move to really work your hamstrings. But that YouTube video is actually part of them showing off their body to promote their business or getting eyeballs to enable them to profit from ads.

Georgie: There has been a lot of backlash against advertisements or fashion shows that showcased ultra thin models. But few, if any, ripples have been made about every single man on television, in movies, or on glossy pages, having bulging biceps and veins on his abs. It's not fair to expect people of any gender to conform to an ideal, which is genetically not in the cards for most people. I'd like to see more pushback when unrealistic body standards are male, but we may have to settle for calling it out in our own minds. And letting the guys we know who have regular human bodies instead of Marvel comic book ones that they look perfectly fine. I also encourage everyone to judiciously curate your social media and internet content for your own mental health. If you follow pages or regularly visit websites for fitness inspiration, ask yourself if inspiration is actually the feeling that you're left with. Often I feel like, oh, I can't do triple back flips, and I can't do pull-ups with one finger and I can't do a dragon pistol mosquito squat, this person's doing it like, oh, lame me.

I just walk upstairs and go hiking. Like, I suck. 'cause we see all this exceptional stuff fed into our eyeballs day after day.

Christina: Such a good point, and unfortunately, there's often self-stigma for men to seek treatment and support more than women. They might put it off for [00:18:00] longer and it can become more difficult to change. That's why it's important to talk about here. Talk about it with your friends, your doctor, your students, your kids, because we wanna help men struggling with this to get the support they need.

Georgie: Come to think of it, I've had a lot of female trainers and female former physique athletes, come to us as clients, but I don't see as many men. But the male clients that we do get very frequently fall into this, not a fitness professional, but having been a fitness enthusiast for a lot of their life and they've, you know, they've got the men's health books like, eat this, not that. And,

Christina: Yep.

Georgie: Almost universally with the men that we come into contact with, have really picked this up from a clean eating background.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: So while we're shining light on things, I think we should notice the health halo that certain food brands create around their products. This is clearly part of Kyle's story. It's more rampant in the USA than it is in Canada, but we still have plenty of it here. I'm talking about when food products have names, including words like sinless, skinny, lean, or fit. Dietician, Bonnie Roney shared an awesome video on Facebook on October 3rd. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. In this video, she's walking through the grocery store pointing out foods with names, implying health or even moral superiority. What's the harm in these labels? Well, that clever marketing trick can make you eat more of that food than you would have otherwise. This was part of Kyle's problematic beliefs that led him to recurrent binge eating on foods with claims just like these.

Christina: I am not sure if you've seen that Khloe Kardashian has developed a brand of protein popcorn. I'm not sure how it tastes or if it's all that healthy, but I don't think we'll all start looking glamorous or somehow better [00:20:00] from eating it.

Georgie: Dammit! Dammit, i was thinking really expensive popcorn might make me. Look just like her. It's a perfect example. Like there's a celebrity selling a food product and the selling points are its clean ingredient list and its association with some glamorous rich woman who has every beauty procedure in the world at her fingertips, but it's just popcorn with some protein powder sprinkled on it.

It's not magic. It's not gonna make you slimmer or prettier. This is the same kind of food product Kyle was spending loads of money on and over consuming because it felt more okay than regular food without all the fitness themed marketing. I see the Lenny and Larry's protein cookies and I'm not thrown any shade.

I've never eaten one. They might be delicious. They might taste like cardboard, I don't know. But that one seems to me like a very guy branded product. Like Lenny and Larry made these cookies, bro,

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: Share them with us. Whereas like I looked at the marketing on the cloud popcorn by Khloe Kardashian and it's very female oriented, obviously. And yeah, when you start looking at these things, you can see how how much of a story they create around an edible product

Christina: Not everything has to have added protein in it anyway. You can have a protein rich diet without buying protein, boosted coffee creamer or nacho cheese chips. Things like chicken, beef, eggs, and yogurt still work just fine. Remember a cookie with added protein. Or popcorn with added protein is still just a cookie and still just popcorn.

Georgie: Yeah, and they often have a lot of calories and fat. It's not like they're negligible.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Georgie: So to sum it up, if you find yourself binge eating while you're also trying to eat a super clean diet, easing up on the restrictions can help decrease the binge incidents. Maybe it would help you to eat a real cookie, real [00:22:00] chocolate or some white flour at times, like I mentioned earlier. Increasing flexibility in daily meals often helps people attain a lower overall intake of sugar and processed foods. In other words, if it prevents you from binging, eating a little dirtier can make your overall intake more conducive to health. Also, be very careful with celebrity or athlete endorsements of food products as well as product names themselves and claims. Try to notice if these diet or clean foods actually cause you to eat more. In that case, they may be counterproductive toward your goals.

Christina: We really appreciate you listening to our show. If you'd like to support us and get access to subscriber only episodes, consider a paid subscription through Apple Podcasts or at georgiefear.com/podcast

Georgie: One of my favorite reviews that we've gotten, and I admit, I read every review. I cannot help

Christina: as you should. As you should.

Georgie: Was someone in the USA and they wrote on Apple podcasts. The heading is, "each episode is gold: it's incredibly rare that I pay to subscribe to a podcast's bonus content, but I did so within a week of starting to listen to this one. If you're a binge eater and are trying to stop, this podcast is an absolute must. My therapist recommended it, and every time I listen, I feel inspired, understood, and filled with hope." So whoever you are out there posting under the username, I've never had a nickname. You're welcome, and thank you so much for the kind words. And to everyone, Christina and I will see you next time, whether on the free episodes or backstage on the subscriber side with our real life clients. The address again is georgiefear.com/podcast. ​