Overeating vs Binge Eating – What's the Difference?

Today I answer a question I get a lot - what is the difference between binging and overeating? 

I am not a medical professional, and this is not medical advice. If you feel like what you are doing with food is extremely detrimental to your mental or physical health, I encourage you to seek advice from a medical professional. 

What I share on my podcast is my own perspective and is based upon my personal experience as well as that of helping many others. If, after listening to this podcast, you want to get more into specific definitions, diagnoses, and more, the internet will provide no shortage of information for you to learn more. 

Here are a few takeaways from today’s episode:

• Binges can look very different for different people. Binges can be as short as a handful of minutes, and they can also last for hours or off and on for days or longer. One of the other hallmarks of a binge is the feeling of being unable to stop. It feels like you are out of control and is often a dissociative experience where you may not even remember the act of eating itself.

• If you purge, I encourage you to reach out for support. Especially if you purge through vomiting and have been doing this for an extended period of time, there are very real physical health consequences to your mouth and to your GI tract. These are often unseen but can have a lasting and very serious impact. I know it can be hard to talk to someone about binging and especially purging. Do your research and make sure that you are talking to someone who can support you in a compassionate way.

• What is overeating? It can show up as eating beyond what your body needs.  Overeating can be a lot of food, either because there is simply a lot to choose from or it tastes good, and you don't want to stop. You also may think that you only get this once a year, so they might as well eat what they can like on Thanksgiving. That feeling at the end of the meal when you know you are a bit more full than you would like - that's an overeat. 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. The podcast design to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control. I'm Master Circuit Coach Jane Hoker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling or what you've tried, food freedom is I'm here to shoot. Restrict and diet. And reading all the cycles of restricting and thinking how I was able to see it all from a new perspective. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge eating. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are going to hear something today that is going to have an impact for your own journey. Perhaps you're going to hear something in a new way. Maybe you're going to hear me talk about something that you've not heard somebody talk about before. What you hear today could be a seed for a future breakthrough for you. And I'm excited that you are joining me. So today I want to talk about a question that I get a lot. And that is what is the difference between binging and overeating? Now, first, I want to say I am not a medical professional. And this is not medical advice. If you feel like what you are doing with food is extremely detrimental to your mental or physical health, I encourage you to see a medical professional. What I share here is my own perspective, and it's based on my personal experience as well as that of helping many others. Okay, so let's start with binging. Now, we could get into the specific definitions of the DSM 5, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. But again, I am not a medical professional and I am not here to diagnose anyone. So we are not going to get into specific definitions today. And after listening to this podcast, if you want to get more into specific definitions, diagnoses, and more, the internet will provide you with no shortage of information to learn more about this. My intention for today is to provide a basic understanding of what I mean when I refer to binge eating, and also so that you can start to get a feel for your own behavior and how it might be classified. Now, what's really interesting is that very few people actually talk about what they do with food. And a lot of overeating and especially binging happens in secret. So people really don't have any concept of if what they are doing is normal. And not only do people not talk about what they do with food in terms of what they eat or how much they eat, very few people talk about what they actually think about it. What are the thoughts that go through your head when it comes to your food decisions? Very few people actually talk about this. So there's no idea of is this normal? Is this not normal? I'm not sure. So for me personally, I didn't tell anyone about my binges for years because I had so much shame. I thought I was broken. I was sure there was something wrong with me that I could and did eat so much food at a time. Now, people can have very different responses to eating different amounts of food. What some people would call a binge, others might not even consider an overeat. So again, I am not here to create any specific definitions or guidelines, but I will tell you the way that I think about it. So for me, a binge is eating large amounts of food, often way more than what a person might eat in a typical sitting in a short period of time. It's often done in secret, and there is usually a lot of shame associated with it. And sometimes the foods or combinations of foods that are eaten can be unusual or not what one might consider typical. Binges can look very different for different people. Binges can be as short as a handful of minutes. They can also last for hours or often on for days or longer. One of the other hallmarks of a binge is the feeling of being unable to stop. It feels like you're out of control. And it's often a dissociative experience where you may not even remember the act of eating itself. So, for example, my very first binge, it was in college. It was in my dorm room. I don't have any memory of the binge itself, but what I do remember is being surrounded by an empty box with empty candy wrappers all around me on the floor. And thinking to myself, what just happened? How did I just eat all of this food? So that's kind of what I mean by a dissociative experience that can happen. So for me, my binges changed over time, and they changed as my location and access to certain foods changed. So when I first started binging in college, when I very first started, I was in a dorm room. Then I moved into an apartment on my own. And at that point, when I was living on my own, my binges would look like I would eat an entire box of teddy grams. Generally, while I was cooking uh shells and cheese, macaroni and cheese, and I would eat the entire box of that. And then I would eat a half a gallon of ice cream. Now I couldn't always finish the ice cream, but I tried. I would generally eat until I simply couldn't eat anymore. And we're talking, I would eat well past the point of physical discomfort. There would be pain. Uh, sometimes I might eat, I might be sweating because I was eating so much. Now, I want to talk for a moment about purging. Purging is when you do something to quote unquote make up for the excess calories consumed in a binge. So this might look like vomiting, it might look like taking laxatives or excessive exercise. When I started binging, I tried to purge through vomiting. And in that moment, it felt like the only way to get relief. I am so thankful that my body simply does not do that very easily. It was just too hard to do, and I felt terrible afterwards. So I just decided it wasn't worth it. I also tried laxatives once, and I will spare you the details that led me to decide that just was not going to be an option for me either. Now, when it comes to exercise, I have always enjoyed exercise for the sake of movement and what it does for me emotionally and physically. Somehow I was able to separate my love for exercise from any need or attempt to make up for any binges. So while I did exercise quite a bit and still do, it was never from a place of punishment or trying to make up for a binge. Not many people talk about binging, and even fewer talk about purging. So if you purge, I want you to know that you are not alone. It makes sense that you might think there is some way to make up for excess calories consumed in a binge. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. And purging can cause far more damage than the act of binging on its own. If you purge, I encourage you to reach out for support. Especially if you purge through vomiting and you've been doing this for an extended period of time, there are very real physical health consequences to your mouth and to your GI tract. These are often unseen, but they can have a lasting and very serious impact. I know it can be hard to talk to someone about binging and especially purging. Do your research. Make sure that you are talking to someone who can support you in a compassionate way. Okay, back to binging. So once I was no longer living on my own and I was living with my fiance, my boyfriend, who's now my husband, my binging patterns had to change. So I started binging in the car. I would drive from one bakery to another, or from the bakery to the convenience store to the grocery store, only buying one or two things at a time so that nobody would know how much I was eating. I would get a grocery bag at one location and put all of my wrappers into that bag while I was binging. And then on the way home, I would stop at a gas station and throw away all of the evidence. During the times that I actually did binge at home, I would often eat my husband's cereal. I have eaten an entire Costco size bag of granola during a binge with no milk. Now, my husband could never understand how I could do this. I would tell him, once I got to the point where I actually would tell him what I had eaten and how much, I would tell him what I had eaten and he would ask me, Did you put milk on that? And I would say no. And he was like, Oh, how could you do that? And yes, I often would have sores on the top of my mouth. Or I would have a very tired jaw from eating so much. It might take several days for my digestive system to recover. Now I went for more of the sweet items, but other people might go for more savory items. So they might stop for fast food on the way home, eating lots of things in the car, then go home, eat a full dinner with the family, and then after everybody goes to bed at night, they might eat more out of the pantry or the freezer. Some people end up eating interesting combinations of foods. So this can happen when you're trying to limit what you have in the house so that you don't binge, but then you end up figuring out what you can create that can kind of be like a binge. So maybe you end up making something that resembles a cookie dough with sugar, flour, and butter. I've actually eaten um chocolate chips straight out of the bag. I've also eaten multiple protein bars or sports nutrition bars simply because that's all that was in the pantry at the time. Once I actually ended up in the hospital because I ate an entire box of Atkins protein bars during a bench. Now, I am sure that wasn't the only thing I ate that day, but the artificial sweeteners in those bars gave me so much gas, and I was in so much pain. My husband took me to the ER. I told the doctor what I had eaten, and his very non-compassionate response was, Well, you aren't supposed to eat the entire box. Thanks, Doc. Like, I'm not ashamed enough in this moment. So hopefully, this gives you some examples of what a binge might look like. Now, what is overeating? I simply think of overeating as eating beyond what your body needs. So this can show up in a number of different ways. A classic example, Thanksgiving. Most people overeat at Thanksgiving. They eat a lot of food, either because there's simply just a lot to choose from, or they think it tastes so good, they don't want to stop. Or they think, oh, I only get this once a year. I might as well eat what I can. That feeling at the end of a meal when you know you're just more full than you would like, that is an overeat. You might want to unbutton your pants or put on your yoga pants or your pajamas. Maybe you feel extra sluggish. Maybe you won't be hungry again for several hours. Or let's say you go to a Mexican restaurant, you eat a basket of chips and salsa, you ask for another. And then when the food comes, you realize, eh, yeah, I'm already pretty full. But you eat the food anyway because you're thinking, oh, this sounds good. This is a special occasion, it's better when it's fresh. That's an overeating. Let's say you're in the office and you go to the break room at 10 a.m. Someone brought in donuts and you decide to have one. You sneak it, you eat it in your office while nobody's looking because you don't want anyone to see you. Now, I can't even tell you if that's an overeat. It's one donut. But here's what it is it's secret eating. Anytime you are eating in secret, anytime you don't want someone to see you eating, that means there is shame around the decision to eat that food. So it's just really good to know if you are somebody who hides, who eats in secret, there is shame around what you're thinking about, either eating in general or eating that very specific food. Now, let's say we're still at the office. It's that afternoon. You go back into the break room. There's a huge tray of cookies left over from a lunch meeting, along with three donuts left over from the morning. So you get some napkins, you take two of the donuts and six of the cookies, and you either go to your office and shut the door and eat them all, or you take them to your car and you eat them while you are driving on the way home. That is likely a binge. And yes, I have totally done this, especially after big luncheons, or during the holiday season when there were constantly treats in the break room. Now, there can be a bit of a transition where someone might go from binging to feeling way more in control around food, but they're still overeating sometimes or quite often to the place where they truly change who they are being as an eater, and the overeating patterns also unwind. So there can be this transition period from if we're going from binging to then overeating to then really like a brand new identity as an eater and unwinding all of those patterns. With overeating, there's generally a lot of awareness, and it's usually a conscious choice to overeat. With binging, sometimes it doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like more of a compulsion. Like you literally might die or come out of your skin if you don't eat in that very moment. I used to say it was almost like I might like literally like I might come out of my skin. There also is often a disassociation or distinct lack of awareness during a binge, during that eating. So, like I used to say that a binge was me like slamming the door on myself or turning the lights off on myself. Now, in an overeat, sometimes there can be a lack of awareness if you are, let's say you're eating in front of the TV and all of a sudden you're like, oh wow, I didn't even realize now there's no more chips in that bag. That could be an overeat where you just weren't paying attention. Or it could be a place where it is literally like a true zone out dissociation. You are eating large quantities, it feels like you can't stop. Does here's the question Does it matter? Does it matter if what you're doing is binging or overeating? You're gonna love my answer. The answer is yes and no. Binging can have more extreme impacts on your physical and emotional well-being. So the first goal for anyone who is binging is to be able to lessen the frequency and the quantity of the binges. Now, this goal is primarily attained through removing the shame and judgment about the behavior, through developing understanding of the behaviors, why they exist, and then applying the other seven solutions to binging that I identify in the first few episodes of this podcast. And at that point, if what remains is overeating, then we start to get curious about what is leading to the overeating. And often it is very similar reasons to the binging, but we've addressed the more intense aspect of the need to dissociate that comes with the binge. And that need to dissociate that comes with the binge is often initially a result of restriction or of trauma. So if what you are doing is overeating and the eight reasons why you binge and the eight solutions that I talk about in the early episodes of this podcast, if all of that resonates with you, it's because these reasons totally apply to overeating as well. So this is where it doesn't really matter if what you're doing is binging or overeating. We don't have to sit and have a discussion. We don't have to sit and analyze, oh, was that a binge? Was that an overeat? I'm not sure. We don't really even have to go there because you have a roadmap either way. You have a roadmap to get curious about your own reasons for your personal eating patterns and how you can address them if you choose to. And remember, you always have a choice. You don't have to stop any of your patterns if you don't want to. They are all serving a purpose. Understanding what that purpose is and how you can get that need met in other ways, if you choose, is a key part of the process of unwinding any unwanted behavior. I hope this was helpful for you today in understanding binging versus overeating. In some ways, it is important to understand the difference, and in other ways, there is a lot of similarity and a lot of similarity in how we can approach it. So you don't have to, you don't have to classify it. You don't have to put a specific name to it. If you know you have patterns with food that you want to address, what we're talking about on this podcast does apply to you. If you have any questions or anything else you'd like to hear on a future episode, just email me at hello at janepilger.com. I would love to hear from you. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you would like personalized guidance, insight, and support to implement the tools, skills, and concepts you are learning on this podcast, I have just what you need. Cultivate an entirely new relationship with yourself and with people. Alongside other women who know and understand your struggles. Coaching, connection, and change are waiting for you. Spots are limited to sign up today. Find out more at janepoker.com forward slash cultivate.