Okay so you’re reading one of my many posts saying that if you feel sugar or any other food item is “like a drug”, you’re not eating enough, and you think to yourself and then write it my notes “but I’ve tried eating more and that doesn’t help.” Welcome to the most frequent reaction to these claims! Not only are you not the exception, you’re giving the textbook disordered response.
These are our next steps when we’re here with disordered eaters: first, we want some 24-hour recalls of what gets eaten on average days, so we can assess where they are roughly in terms of adequacy and consistency. I can tell you that when people are tending to binge or experience what they call “food addiction”, I rarely find the 24-hr recalls to show adequacy and consistency. There’s usually an overall deficiency in calories as well as too much time between meals and snacks (breakfast is a common culprit). Restrict-binge cycling is ofc very common as well.
Another issue is that people think rectifying an energy deficit is a short-term effort, and anyone who’s recovered from an ED can tell you how laughably and cry-ably wrong this is. In the most aggressive clinical refeeding, I have never seen the process take less than several months… and that’s closely monitored high-calorie intake day in and day out with no lapses. Most people who are doing this on their own are extremely inconsistent when trying to refeed. Consistent refeeding can actually feel quite brutal when you’re used to restrictive patterns. If you’re doing it casually, you may not be doing it at all.
You’re not uniquely broken when it comes to food—that’s a lie of diet culture and eating disorders. But coming out of your inadequate, inconsistent, or cyclical eating patterns takes work and commitment. It’s hard. If you’re still in the “food is a drug” mode after you made an effort to eat more, your restriction may be too serious for you to address alone, or without educated and sustained effort at the very least.
