The Binge-Restrict Cycle: Why Skipping Meals Always Backfires

If you've ever tried to lose weight by skipping breakfast and lunch, only to find yourself demolishing a packet of biscuits by evening, you've experienced what psychologists call the binge-restrict cycle. Understanding why this happens is crucial for anyone trying to change their relationship with food, whether on GLP-1 medications or not.

Here's what happens when you restrict during the day. You skip meals in a bid to limit the calories you're eating. By the evening, your blood sugar level is so low that the body starts to panic. The brain needs a steady supply of glucose to function, so we are designed to do everything we can to eat in order that our brain can keep functioning. This is an incredibly strong drive, honed over thousands of years of evolution.

By the evening, the desire to eat becomes almost overwhelming. Once you start, it becomes almost impossible to stop. What's more, the body will crave calorie dense, easy to digest foods like cake, chocolate or highly processed food so that it can get the glucose as quickly as possible to the brain. Despite your best intentions, you find yourself bingeing on junk food in the evening. You demolish a packet of biscuits, eat a whole pizza and then raid the freezer for ice cream.

This phenomenon is called a binge-restrict cycle because after bingeing, people feel so guilty and such a failure, they promise themselves that tomorrow, they'll be 'good' and restrict during the day again, meaning the whole cycle starts all over again. While some people fall into this pattern daily, lots of people have variations of it when they are on diets.

The body is actually doing what it can to keep your blood glucose in balance. It's not the problem here. It's the unhelpful, unhealthy way of trying to restrict and miss meals that's the issue. It's trying to fight our body's need for a regular, steady supply of energy.

On GLP-1 medications, long periods of restriction become easier to maintain because people don't actually feel the same hunger cues that would normally trigger bingeing on food. But the body is still panicking, it's just that you don't register it in the same way. This is why I encourage people not to fall into the habit of skipping meals while on these medications.

It is vital that people continue to eat regularly while taking these medications, even if it's just a small portion. This is the only way that someone can maintain stable blood sugar levels, and this regular eating pattern will ensure you don't fall into the futile, tormenting restrict-binge cycle when you stop taking the medication. The goal should always be to establish healthy, sustainable eating patterns that will serve you long after the medication has stopped. GLP-1 medications give you the perfect opportunity to break free from this destructive cycle and build a new, healthier relationship with food.