Is there such a thing as healthy binging? Sometimes we just want to indulge in food. Whether it is Christmas holidays, thanksgiving, or the whole inclusive vacation in Costa Rica with all the good stuff with it. So there is no other option than just eat a lot. Is that a problem? Will your health suffer? Will you gain weight? Not really, if you do it right.
Healthy binging
You can eat a lot of food to the point that you feel like you are going to blow up without any harm to your health or without any gain in weight. But for that you need to follow few simple rules.
It’s just a common sense eating for a cave man walking looking for a food. Binging is actually quite natural for us. Our ancestors were looking for food for long periods of time and when they found it, they binged on it. They didn’t have a freezers and fridges and cans and processing equipment to store these foods. They had to eat as much as they could and right before the food got bad.
And there lies the first rule to the healthy binging:
Binge only on the stuff that gets bad fast
Fruits and vegetables rotten when you leave them sitting on your table for some time. Same with fresh cooked meats. But some stuff get bad too that are bad for us, and here you apply another rule:
Don’t binge on anything that has sugar added to it
That pear bread pudding or pumpkin pie has a lot of added sugar in it. And that’s why it’s dangerous to bing on it. Added sugar poisons our body. Sure, you can have a little piece after binging on right stuff. But really make it little and only one.
Than there is a rule number three:
Don’t binge on anything what is processed
Mash potatoes are processed food. Bread, bagels, pastries, pizzas, alcohol, deserts are all processed foods. Have a little, but don’t binge on these. These foods are dangerous to binge on.
Healthy binging example
Here I will give you a healthy binging example.
You are on your whole inclusive vacation in Mexico. It’s a dinner time. You enter a huge dining room with buffet full of goodies. 20 kind of deserts, all kinds of meats, lots of fruit and vegetables and national dishes. And waiter just wants to keep your glass full of tequila.
This is what you should do to binge healthy. You can certainly try all kinds of meats that are grilled and cooked, not fried. I am not a huge fan of meat, not because its bad for you, but because its bad for the animals and environment. So go ahead and put some fresh meat on your plate and eat as much as you want. On the other plate put huge amount of fresh cooked vegetables like Greens, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage and others. And then binge on these. Binge especially a lot on these stuff.
When you are done with your meal, go ahead and have one piece of desert and one shot of tequila or glass of vine. Make sure it’s just one. You waiter especially in Mexico is going to think, you are crazy. He wants to keep poring the alcohol. Just have one drink. Ok, maybe two. Just make sure it’s something pure, like shot of vodka, vine, tequila, scotch or gin. Do not drink the mixed drinks! They are sugar bombs.
On my recent vacation in Mexico, I was probably the only one who was drinking the non mixed drinks. I was in Mexico, so I drunk tequila on rocks. Everybody was drinking the sweet mixed stuff. Interestingly all these people wanted to get drunk fast, but they didn’t realize that drinking the pure stuff would get them there faster and without any additional sugar consumed.
If you did this, I don’t really care how much you ate, you ate healthy. You binged healthy. And you don’t have to worry about eating too much calories and too much of anything. You will be fine.
I binged in Mexico every day and still managed to keep my body weight the same. I even lost 2 pounds which I don’t really need to.
It certainly helps if you stay active while also binging. So go ahead and binge whenever you can. But follow the healthy binging rules.