Everyone has done binge eating and loved it!
Even if you are on a weight loss plan or trying to achieve a body goal, you can’t deny that binge eating happens and is so satisfying.
But the pleasure often lasts for a short time. The belief that it can hinder the progress you’ve made so far makes people avoid binge eating altogether.
However, there’s also a theoretical concept that binge eating boosts metabolism by resetting it.
So, should you binge eat to boost your metabolism? Well, this is controversial and needs more clarification.
Therefore, we did what we are best at—researching and finding out does binge eating boost metabolism.
We also made an effort for those who are on weight loss plans to understand the effect of binge eating on their goals. Here is what we’ve found out.
Key Insights:
- Binge eating is said to boost metabolism for a shorter duration, but it is merely a theoretical analysis.
- Research suggests binge eating can cause more damage to metabolic dysfunction and can also add to weight gain.
- Binge eating can turn into a disorder if you continue to eat recklessly.
Now, let’s hop into the analysis of the main topic and find out if you should really be binge eating to boost your metabolic system.
Does Binge Eating Boost Metabolism?
It is a common belief that it does. However, mere food digestion has very little contribution to boosting metabolism.
Binge eating is when you eat a large amount of food in a small amount of time. Therefore, you are consuming more calories than you burn.
The food digestion process cannot cancel out the calories you eat during binge eating.
So, if you think that you can eat freely and will be able to burn all the calories because it boosts metabolism, you’re wrong.
While it may give a slight push at the beginning, the effect doesn’t last long. What do the researchers have to say about binge eating and its impact on metabolism?
A study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism studied binge eating behavior and its significant health risks.
For this, 7 lean women with no eating disorders were studied on two occasions. On the first occasion, they ate 3 regular meals plus a snack on each of the 3 days.
On other occasions, they ate the same number of calories and macronutrients matched to a normal diet in a single evening meal. After comparing the impact, the results show that:
- Binge eating a large number of calories and macronutrients even when it is appropriate to weight can impact metabolic parameters.
- It is hypothesized that binge eating behavior is related to even greater metabolic dysfunction.
Ingestion of an entire day’s calories at one time (binge eating) would disrupt the glucose, insulin, and leptin metabolism.
It is, therefore, clear that binging cannot boost metabolism. In fact, on the contrary, it can disrupt it and make it worse for you; especially for those who are on a weight loss plan.
How Does Binge Eating Affect Your Weight Loss Goals?
Let’s be honest, the urge to eat more is higher when you are working on your weight loss plan.
Nonetheless, objectively eating large amounts of food with the feeling of losing control over the consumption can wreak havoc on your weight loss efforts.
This is not our theory. According to the reports of the study from the University of Pennsylvania published in the Journal, Obesity, binge eating is a significant hurdle.
It suggests that those who continue to binge eat while trying to lose weight drop about half as much as those who don’t.
After studying the participants for 4 years, researchers found that, those who reported no binge eating or a reduction in the tendency to do so lost more weight in comparison to those who continued to binge eat.
The difference is huge in terms of figures. Participants lost 4.6 percent of initial body weight compared to 1.9 percent.
So, binge eating does affect your weight loss goals, and here is how it happens.
#1. Causes Weight Gain
You can use cheat meals for fat loss but binge eating can lead to weight gain. It is because you consume excess calories in comparison to your everyday diet and this causes a metabolic dysfunction making it harder for you to lose weight.
In fact, in a study highlighting the metabolic consequence of Binge Eating, 15 young healthy males who consumed 6000 calories gained an average of 0.85 ± 0.20 kg body mass following one day of high-fat overfeeding. This observation was published in the Journal, Nutrients.
#2. Affects Gut Health
Normally the digestion process takes around 24-36 hours in a healthy individual who takes enough fiber.
But binge eating especially unhealthy foods can take a toll on your digestive process. It is because the larger amount of food you eat the longer it takes to digest.
This will not only affect the gut microbiome but the excess food will start turning into fat as well.
#3. Water Weight Gain
Most of the time binge eaters consume a lot of carbohydrates while binge eating. These carbohydrates are stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen.
Notably, for every gram of glycogen, there are 3 grams of water stored. Therefore, the more carbohydrates you consume, the more water weight you will gain.
#4. Psychological Effect
Binge eating makes you feel sluggish, fatigued, and lose the motivation to work out.
Adding to it, frequent binge eating even increases the urge to eat more and brings your weight loss goals to a halt.
Therefore, binge eating is not for those who are serious about their weight loss goals. But does this mean you should eliminate binge eating from your plan?
Well, of course not. You can binge once in a while to make a change.
How Often Can I Binge Eat on A Weight Loss Plan?
Notably, if you continuously binge eat once a week for 3 months, it is considered a binge eating disorder.
Therefore, based on this report, avoid binge eating every week. But of course, you can chow down once or twice a month without getting affected.
Especially if you are on a weight-loss diet, don’t get carried away by the whole weekend diet or you might end up gaining weight instead.
So, try to hold onto yourself and binge eat as little as possible if you want to achieve a desired weight goal.
How to Overcome Binge Eating?
If you are binge eating and it hasn’t reached the disorder stage, you can still get a hold of it. There are only a few things you need to keep in mind.
#1. Ditch Fad Diets: Avoid indulging too much in fad diets and staying hungry for longer. It will only trigger your hunger pangs and make you eat more.
#2. Make a Meal Plan: This is the best thing to do when you want to avoid binge eating. Make a meal plan in advance and stick to eating. This way you do not end up deciding to eat junk because you don’t know what to eat.
#3. Declutter Your Kitchen: Clean your kitchen! Remove every junk, unprocessed, and packaged food that triggers your emotional eating. Limit your options of binge eating foods at home.
#4. Find the Triggers and Work On Them: Binge eating is most often the result of emotional eating or stress. Try to overcome stress or talk to someone when emotional rather than eating.
#5. Eat More Fiber and Protein: Include more fiber and protein in your diet because such foods keep you fuller for longer. This way you don’t feel the urge to eat often and will stop binge eating every week.
Binge eating has more or less become a disorder and is affecting around 1.6% of teens. It’s turning into a habit and affecting the metabolism adversely. Here’s more to clear your confusion on does binge eating boost metabolism.
FAQs
Looking at how binge eating is turning into a disorder faster than ever, here are some of the most frequently asked questions people often search about it.
#1. Can overeating increase metabolism?
Overeating may increase metabolism but for a very short period. Its negative impacts on the body are higher in comparison to what insignificant changes it does to your metabolism.
#2. Does binging reset metabolism?
Binging can only reset your metabolism if it is not done very often. If you binge eat every once a week continuously, you are more likely to gain weight. However, binge eating once or twice a month will help your body burn more calories by resetting it.
#3. What happens when you eat 3000 calories in one sitting?
Eating 3000 calories in one sitting is binge eating. It can affect your weight, make you feel uneasy because your stomach expands and pouches other organs, put pressure on the liver and pancreas because they start working harder to secret more enzymes, the heart rate increases, and you feel heartburn because the esophagus is filled with acid.
#4. Will a cheat day break my plateau?
Yes, cheat meals are an important part of weight loss and fitness plans because they help break the plateau. You can incorporate one cheat meal in a week prepared at home for long-term weight loss results.
Binge eating is clearly not a healthy way to burn extra calories. If someone is advising you that. He/she is probably jealous of the progress you have made so far.
Final Verdict
If you are stuffing your face thinking binge eating will speed your metabolism you are WRONG.
Binge eating is making you sluggish both mentally and physically by adversely affecting your metabolism.
It also affects the gut health and makes it harder for the body to digest so much of food which ultimately gets stored as fat leading to weight gain.
While it is better to avoid binge eating if you want faster results, there is no harm in binging on food once or twice a month.
Since binge eating mostly includes fast, junk, and sugary foods, avoid doing it too often.