Whoops - Food Binge

Life has certainly been different for the past few months. People may be more likely to go on a food binge.

Confession - last night a member of Private Home Care’s staff had the good intention of using up old bananas and made chocolate chip banana bread. It did not end well and they ended up eating most of the rich banana bread. But all is not lost, this has happened to all of us at some point!

How do we recover from a food binge? First let’s take a look at what is going on in your body and how your body is feeling.

First there is a dopamine rush because eating makes you feel great! As you overindulge, the liver gets overwhelmed and literally takes all of the sugar and turns it into fat. That’s because the liver has so much sugar in it with no room to go so chemically it feels like it’s going to burst. All of the food you just ate, including high amounts of salt and sugar, goes to the intestines, and makes you bloated. Your pancreas gets overworked, it is trying to make a lot of hormones and keep up with all of the sugar you ate, which makes you irritable. Going on a food binge makes you bloated and go into a ‘food coma’ low energy state because your body is working so hard to process all of the food you just had.

Your stomach can stretch, you can mess up your circadian rhythm (because binging makes you tired and want to take a nap!), you can get heartburn, have digestive issues, gain weight, and feel depressed.