Will I gain weight from binging?
Asked by anonymous on Apr 26, 2009
in Emotional & Behavioral Issues
Last Thursday, my calorie total for the day was 5000. The next two days, I ate around 1500, and tomorrow morning, I did it again. Now, it's 11:20 and I'm at 3200 calories. If I return to the right track and start a new week tomorrow eating 1500-1900 calories, will I gain weight? I calculated that I had a 3300 calorie surplus this week, and so did I gain a pound of fat?
Answer
It is easy to gain weight from binging. Your "calorie intake" is the average of your calories everyday over some point in time. And so, if, over the course of one week, you ate 3200 extra calories, then you will gain about one pound (but the process is much more complicated - just figure that all calories count. Binging, also called emotional eating, should be assessed by a mental health counselor when it is accompanied by obsessive thoughts about eating and feelings of depression, guilt, self-disgust, and anxiety. Emotional eaters often benefit from "non-diet" approaches such as Intuitive Eating. See my favorite books for compulsive eaters at the Calorie Count Blog, Dieting and You.
So you can keep track of what you eat - which enables you to analyze your foods and receive the following:
- Health Score of your overall diet
- Warning when you approach your daily calorie limit
- Overview of the good and bad nutrients
