Exercising and Binge Eating

Exercising and Binge Eating. Here is an indisputable fact for you: If you are a binge eater, it doesn’t matter how much you exercise. You will never burn off all the calories you consume.

My admiration for exercising binge eaters is deep. I see them in every gym and every park. They are running, lifting weights, in exercise classes, on treadmills and stationary bikes. Some binge eaters I see exercise for years, and they never lose weight. It pains me to think about their situation.

During my binge eating journey, a physical fitness trainer who helped me said, “You’re doing great on your workouts. However, if you don’t fix what your eating, exercising won’t change anything.”

He had no idea what I was eating; he just knew that I wasn’t progressing. He knew that I had a food problem. I didn’t get any help from the trainer beyond that sentence.

A 20-minute meal can remove any gain from an entire day of exercise

I will show you that an unrealistic day of 8 hours of exercise cannot erase one high-calorie yummy meal.

The exercise

For this example, we are going to consider a day is 8 hours. You are going to walk for 8 hours. Realistically, this is probably the only 8-hour exercise routine you could do. You can’t jog for 8 hours. You can’t bicycle for 8 hours. Walking is really the only realistic exercise you could do for 8 hours.

Using the fitness calculator I found on webmd.com, moderately walking for an overweight man (210 lbs) for 8 hours burns 2,508 calories.

The meal

This overweight man feels he “earned” a nice dinner at Carrabba’s Italian Grill for all his exercise. Using Carrabba’s nutritional menu to get the calorie counts of menu items, this overweight man eats the following meal:

• Side Salad: Caesar Salad @ 330 calories
• Appetizer: half of Mozzarella Marinara @ 450 calories
• Bread with Herbs & Oil: 2 servings @ 540 calories
• Entry: Fettuccine Carrabba @ 1,470 calories
• Side: None
• Dessert: Traditional Cannoli @ 950 calories

The Results

So the math is 3,740 Calories consumed — 2,508 calories burned = 1,232 calories over for the day!

The fact that he exercised for 8 hours did not help him in his weight loss goals. He still gained on the day, and he is probably going to be sore the next day. He probably could not sustain exercising 8 hours a day.

Also, my example is still not realistic because it assumes he ate only one meal that day. Most binge eaters never miss a meal. He probably also would have snacks during his 8-hour walk.

When I was a binge eater, I could consume this much food in about 20 minutes! This is what my physical fitness trainer was talking about.

Exercising and binge eating solution

It should be clear to you now that the solution is found in how much you eat and not how much you exercise.

By the way, only a binge eater can consume as much food as my example consumed. People with a normal functioning hunger drive would have stopped eating or even chosen different menu items.

Where to go from here

If you think you are a binge eater, I suggest these articles:

• Are you a binge eater? Take a short test to see if you are a binger.
• Why you binge eat. Introduces you to why you binge eat
• How to stop binge eating Provides you the tools to stop binge eating.