What To Do The Day After A Binge?
How many times have you come across someone who binges and then tries to compensate for it the next day? Now think about how many of these people actually get the results they want? The reason why there’s such a high failure rate for the people who do this is that they get stuck in this sort of loop, where they binge and try to compensate for it over and over again. If you find this happening to you, the first thing you have to realize is that this is not healthy behavior and that it is not okay for you to give yourself the instant gratification you get from binging whenever you feel like.
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That being said, none of us can be perfect at all times and we’ll always have off days here and there. Life happens and you might not always be able to stick to the plan. But the question is, if you do end up binging, what is the next step?
The generic answer would be to get back on the plan. You have to understand that doing more cardio the next day or just starving yourself is not going to help you to a large extent. In fact, there’s a high possibility that it could backfire and trigger another binge. Think about it this way, even if you do a very intense session of cardio for an hour, you’re not going to burn more than 500 calories, and that isn’t a lot. What it might do instead is make you feel hungrier after the session and lead you to wanting more food. In a similar way, starving yourself the next day might just make you feel miserable and might lead you to eat more than you normally would have if you had just stuck to your plan.
What I mentioned above is the most generic answer to this problem and is what makes it the best solution as well. No matter who you are, it will be better for you to get back to your plan. But what if you are someone who still wants to minimize the damage? What would I recommend you to do then?
For this, you have to assess the size of your binge. This simply means how much you approximately overshot your maintenance calories by. This is because binging on 3 slices of pizza isn’t the same as binging on 8 slices pizza along with some dessert. And thus, how you minimize the damage for these different cases will not be the same as well. Here’s what you can do once you have an idea of how much you overshot your maintenance by.
Keep in mind that these are not hard facts. This is what I’ve found over the years to be the most effective. Feel free to make adjustments based on how you feel.
Case 1
If you overshoot your maintenance by 0 - 1500 calories, you would still be better off sticking to the solution mentioned above. If you just get back to your plan and eat at a deficit, you will get over this in a few days. Make sure you consume enough water to flush out the extra sodium on the following days and you’ll be back to making progress in no time.
Case 2
If you overshoot your maintenance by 1500 - 2500 calories, you could add in a low-intensity cardio session for the next one or two days. When I say low-intensity cardio, I mean a going outside for a walk, not running on the treadmill. A long walk for 45-60 minutes will not only help you burn off some excess energy but since it is not very taxing on your body, it will also help you feel a little more relaxed and recovered. Along with this, make sure you drink enough water and stick to your plan.
*If you’re already doing cardio, I wouldn’t recommend doing more as it’ll just make you feel beaten down.
Case 3
Here’s the massive binges, the ones where you eat 3000 or more calories above your maintenance. If you come across such a situation, you will realize that you are extremely full and bloated the next morning. While you could just get back to your plan in this situation as well, I completely understand how frustrating it can be to do so. The solution here is to listen to your body. If you are feeling stuffy and bloated the next morning, you could try pushing your first meal further into the day. This simply means you would only eat when you truly feel hungry. If you’re really full, you can just eat one meal at night. While this isn’t going to completely erase the damage done, it can help you minimize the time you spend on recovering from the binge and help you start making results a little faster. Again, make sure you listen to your body. If you feel hungry, you could eat light meals whenever you feel like. And if you feel that won’t work either, just get back to your plan.
Conclusion
Binging is not healthy and one should make an effort to minimize the chance of it occurring. That being said, no one is perfect and we often find ourselves in a situation where we don’t know how to recover after a binge. The best course of action is to get back to the plan. Starving or adding excessive amounts of cardio will not help to a great extent and might even end up backfiring. If you feel that you have overshot your maintenance by a very large amount, you can add in one to two sessions of low-intensity cardio on the next day and try pushing your meal a little later into the day. In the end, make sure to listen to your body as you will only be able to make consistent progress when you work with your body, not against it.
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