Good evening Barbell Medicine,
Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and Happy New Year to you all! As it is now the new year, I hoping to accomplish several goals I set myself this year, and one of them is to stop high-calorie splurging weekly. For the most part about 5-6 days a week, I tend to have an overall healthy diet. I have lots of fruits and vegetables daily, my SFA is pretty low, eat mostly chicken, and stick with Whole Foods for the most part. I do tend to snack daily but I keep it very minimal for the most part and make sure I don’t go over my caloric intake goals. Now, one concern I have with my dietary pattern that I really want to cut out is going on a binge at least once or twice a week. It gets very difficult for me at times to force myself not to do it, but I either get restless, can’t stop thinking about it, and even sometimes walk to the kitchen without grabbing anything and walk back to my room (Yes lol). Sometimes it works, but a lot of the times it doesn’t: I tend to binge on sweets and go as far as eating a ton of crackers, chips, cookies, and even a full tub of ice cream consuming an absurd amount of SFAS and carbs. This happens at both the office and home, since people are always bringing in snacks & sweets and it’s very hard me to resist. I’m not really a big fan on completely abstaining on treats you enjoy, but at the same time it can be very difficult for me to eat in moderation. Always has been.
I currently weigh around 157-160 lbs with ~32.5 waist circumference that I’ve been able to keep for quite a while. My goal for the past 2-3 months was to lower it ~31 inches and gain weight at a very slow rate but I know this habit of mine is definitely preventing me to reach that goal. The obvious solution is stop binge eating once or twice a week, but for me it’s very difficult to do so. Since I was a kid I have always, and probably will always have a sweet tooth and I want to continue life by eating the foods I love but learning to do so in moderations and not eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in one sitting. I also try to think about long term consequences eating like this and think about I won’t be able to reach my goals if I continue to eat like this, but it’s just not working out for me. I also feel that I shouldn’t tell my family and coworkers to stop buying snacks/sweets cus I’d just look inconsiderate to them. How can I learn to control myself and not binge when snacks are easily accessible in the house/office? Here’s some information about myself that may help
Age: 25
BW: 157-160
WC: ~32.5
Typical Macros on a non binge day: 120gC 145gP 32gF (I tend to aim for 2.0g/kg of protein). SFA intake is around 10g
Current training: I was running the PL II template, but I unfortunately came across with some low back pain that would not go away even with modifications for the past 6-7 weeks, so I am now running the LBP rehab template and I am feeling pretty good hoping to get back to baseline soon.
Thank you BBM for everything you guys do! Enjoy Miami and I can’t see what’s in store for 2020.