Let’s say you’ve been following your strict diet perfectly all week when your friends invite you to Sunday brunch. Although you’re nervous about finding menu items that fit your plan, you accept the invitation anyway.

When you get to brunch, you cave to peer pressure and order a bloody mary. Then you have a few bites of a shared fried appetizer. Your defenses are down and you’re mentally exhausted from a week of white-knuckling your eating.

After indulging in the drink and appetizer, you feel a wave of guilt. Since you’ve already “blown” today, you go all in on your favorite cheat foods. You order a heaping plate of pancakes and two more drinks. On the way home, you stop and pick up a pint of ice cream, which you eat mid-afternoon. When it’s time for dinner, you order Chinese take out and eat way past the point of fullness.

At the end of the day, you feel bloated, overstuffed, and riddled with guilt and disgust. You vow to resume your restrictive diet the next morning.

It’s easy to get caught up in this vicious cycle of restricting and binging. This rarely leads to success with your fitness goals; instead it almost always leads to decreased self-confidence, guilt, frustration, and an unhealthy relationship with food. If this story sounds anything like you, it’s time to try a different approach. Keep reading to learn my top three strategies to combat all-or-nothing eating.

Get rid of rigid rules.

One of the best ways to set yourself up for all-or-nothing eating is to set strict rules about what you can and cannot eat. If you struggle with this problem, don’t make any foods completely off limits (the exception here would be if you have a serious food intolerance or allergy).

As soon as something is forbidden, it becomes much more appealing. Indulging in just one of your forbidden foods can create a chain reaction leading to an all-out binge. These binges do way more damage than simply eating enough to satisfy your craving.

Instead of setting rigid rules, allow yourself to eat whatever you want, whenever you want. This can be scary at first, especially if you are someone who is constantly dieting. However, giving yourself the freedom to eat anything makes you reconsider your choices. Combined with mindfulness practices (more on this below), you will be more likely to eat only foods you truly want and stop when you’re satisfied.  

Another strategy is to have small amounts of “cheat” foods throughout the week. Jill Coleman calls this “preemptive cheating” and believes it can help moderate weekend eating. A preemptive cheat would be any less-than healthy food you enjoy such as chocolate, alcohol, fatty foods like cheese or butter, and carbs. Rather than telling yourself you’ll never eat your favorite foods again, allow yourself to eat just enough to make your meals taste good and to satisfy any cravings.

Don’t take on too much at once.

Psychological wins are very important when building new habits. It’s crucially important to set yourself up for success early on in the process.

One of the surest ways to fail is to try to change everything at once. For example, if you are currently eating McDonalds for breakfast, skipping lunch, eating 2 heaping plates of food at dinner, and snacking on chips and ice cream before bed, attempting to overhaul your entire diet is likely to completely overwhelm you. After a week of trying to manage 20 new habits, the smallest slip-up may trigger a binge. This only fuels the vicious all-or-nothing diet cycle.

If you have a long list things you want to change, start with the one thing you are most confident you can manage right away. Slow, small improvements are easier to sustain and will build confidence in your ability to change. Accept that you’re not going to be perfect right away and acknowledge that you will surely slip up along the way. Give yourself permission to start small and grow to relieve some of the pressure that can cause all-or-nothing eating.

Slow down and sit.

My final strategy to combat all-or-nothing eating is to practice mindfulness. It’s easy to get swept away by uncomfortable emotions or to lose touch with what our body is actually trying to communicate. The best ways to get back in touch with these signals are to slow down and take some space every day to sit quietly with your thoughts.

Practice eating slowly and without distractions. Focus on the taste and texture of each bite of food and chew fully before swallowing. Put down your utensil between bites to breathe or take a sip of water. Stop eating when you are satisfied or when the food no longer tastes as good as the first few bites. Slowing down can help you take back control of your decisions around food and potentially interrupt the whirlwind of emotions that can fuel a binge.

If you do notice the self-talk or thoughts that precipitate a binge, do something to halt the process. Set a timer, find something engaging to occupy your mind, or call a friend or family member. Whenever possible, remove yourself from the situation tempting you to binge.  

Finally, establish some daily practices to connect you with your values and long-term goals. Keep a journal or spend time reflecting on how you’re feeling. When uncomfortable emotions come up, allow yourself to sit with them until they pass. This sounds cheesy but it actually works. When we learn to manage our emotions appropriately, we no longer need to use food as a coping mechanism.

If you struggle with all-or-nothing eating, you’re not alone. Many people are silently caught in this vicious cycle. The good news is there is always hope to move forward. Start by accepting you don’t need to be perfect to see results. Get rid of rigid food rules that set you up for failure. Focus on making sane and sustainable changes and give yourself room to make mistakes. Slow down when eating, identify and interrupt binge triggers, and spend time exploring yourself and your emotions. And always practice compassion toward yourself; building healthy habits is hard, but you have what it takes to see it through.

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