Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Science of How to Stop Binge Eating (10 Evidence-Based Tips)

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you start eating and just can't seem to stop? Well, you're not alone. Binge eating can be a frustrating and defeating experience for many of us. It can quickly set us back in our health and fitness journey, especially when it comes to reaching our body composition goals. And even if you don't struggle with binge eating disorder, you may still find yourself overeating a bit too much a bit too often. So, whether you’re dealing with true bingeing or not, in this episode, I’m serving up 10 science-based tips to help you stop binge eating, improve your relationship with food, and take control of your eating habits. Sit back, relax, and let's dive in!" Timestamps: (0:00) - Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://buylegion.com/ and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! (4:34) - What is binge eating? (9:51) - What causes binge eating? (13:10) - Avoid restricting diets (14:56) - How does skipping meals cause binge eating? (18:50) - Avoid tempting foods (20:23) - Fill up on fewer calories (23:52) - Exercise (25:15) - Drink water (27:19) - Eat mindfully (29:25) - Manage stress (31:38) - Spend time with people (32:09) - Eat more protein (34:33) - What do I do when I binge eat? Mentioned on the Show: Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://buylegion.com/ and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points!

Howdy, howdy. I'm Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today for another episode. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about binge eating and I'm going to be sharing 10 science-based tips to stop binge eating. Now, what is binge eating? Well, it is pretty simple. It is a situation where once you start eating, you just can't stop. So if you have ever said something like that to yourself, if you have ever said something like, once I start eating, you just can't stop. So if you have ever said something like that to yourself, if you have ever said something like, once I start eating, I just can't stop. Most of us have experienced this before, then you are familiar with binge eating. And you are probably also aware of how binge eating can set you back a step or three or 10 on your way to achieving your health and your fitness goals, particularly your

body composition goals. And if you don't necessarily have trouble with binge eating per se, you don't have binge eating disorder, or you don't binge to the point of, I just can't stop, but you do tend to overeat a bit too much, a bit too often for your liking and for your body composition goals, then this episode is going to be helpful for you too, because these tips also apply to those of us who just eat a bit too much a bit too often, but don't necessarily take it to the point of binging. Before we wade into it, did you know that you don't need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy? That you don't need any pills, powders, and potions whatsoever if you know what to do in the kitchen and in the gym. You can get into fantastic shape

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No questions asked or we will send you something else if you'd rather try something else. So you really have nothing to lose. Go to buylegion.com now. So you really have nothing to lose. Go to buylegion.com now, use the coupon code muscle at checkout to save 20% or get double reward points if it is not your first order and try my supplements risk-free. All right. So let's start with a quick discussion of what binge eating is. I quickly commented on this in the intro, but I think it's worth expanding on briefly. So binge eating is a behavior that's marked by eating a lot of food very quickly. And there are two types of binge eaters. On the one hand, some people occasionally binge and it doesn't impact their health. They

occasionally just eat way too much. And they often offset these little episodes by exercising or being more restrained with their diet for a day or two or three afterward. And they lose any fat that they have gained by eating way too much on that one day. And then they more or less just carry on with their normal routine. So these people, they are susceptible to overindulging from time to time. It's often on special occasions, you know, birthdays, holidays, dining out in a restaurant they really like, but they do understand that they have to make up for it in other ways if they want to stay healthy, if they want to maintain their body composition. And I myself have done this intentionally. So for Thanksgiving, for many years, I would intentionally eat as much as I

possibly could. I mean, I would eat until I basically couldn't move because I was in so much pain. And I stopped a few years ago because I just had had enough. And the food, honestly, in the last few years, it's been good, but it just hasn't been good enough to even inspire me to want to eat seven plates of it like I used to. And I remember distinctly the last time I did it years ago, I was at my parents' house, I ate again, like seven plates of food or something. And then I'm lying on the couch. I basically can't move. I'm sweating. And I feel like I just swallowed a baby rhinoceros or something. And that's when I decided this is going to be the last year of the Thanksgiving binge. And then what I would do afterward when I would do that is I naturally just wasn't hungry the next day, unsurprisingly.

And so I usually wouldn't eat my first meal until probably like 2 p.m. So kind of like an intermittent fasting type thing the next day, just skip breakfast simply because I not only was not hungry, I actually didn't want food physically. The thought of eating food was kind of revolting. And so then, you know, I'd eat a smallish meal, maybe around two, eat a smallish dinner. In both of those meals, I wasn't even really hungry. I was just eating something because I don't want to eat nothing. Although I guess it wouldn't even have been unreasonable to just do like a 24 hour fast after eating all that food. And then the next day or two, I would go back to my normal eating,

but it'd be kind of like cutting. So I'd be like, yeah, shoot for maybe 2000, maybe 2200 calories the next two days, and then just go back to normal. And so that type of binging is not necessarily a problem, especially if you are not prone to any sort of binge eating disorder or just eating disorders in general, I wouldn't recommend doing it. But if you do something like that yourself and on a birthday or a holiday, there's nothing particularly wrong with that. Now, if you're doing it fairly often, that is something else. And that brings me to the other type of binge eaters. So some people, they binge more regularly. They are binging at least once per week for a few months, for example. That's kind of a technical criterion. And these people experience a loss of control over the

amount of food that they eat. So they feel out of control, where if I contrast that with what I was doing, I was intentionally just eating as much as I could because I wanted to see how much I could eat. I felt like I was very in control. It feel ashamed afterward. They feel depressed afterward. And they also usually don't compensate for these binges by eating fewer calories at other times or exercising more. And these people are likely suffering from binge eating disorder, which is the most common eating disorder in the U.S. and it's associated with several unwanted health conditions, including depression, poor cardiometabolic health, strained relationships, chronic pain, obesity, and diabetes. So if you are listening to this because you are seeking help for binge eating disorder, if you know that you have this eating disorder, I would recommend

speaking to your doctor. This podcast is probably not going to be enough to fully resolve it, but it still may help. But if you are more in the first camp, if you don't need medical help per se, you can probably curb your episodic gluttony, or at least you can moderate it by using a few simple tips that I'm going to be sharing in this episode. But before I get to those tips, I want to talk a little bit about what causes binge eating. So we humans, we are hardwired to love the taste of fat, salt, and sugar. And that's why calorie-dense fatty foods are so appealing. These are the foods that gave our ancient ancestors the energy reserves that they needed to survive. They needed to survive food shortages and famines and extended periods of

vigorous physical activity with very few calories, big calorie deficits, right? Running around, trying to find food, not finding much foraging, finding some berries here and there. Finally, after a week, killing an animal and being able to gorge. And so that, at least biologically, evolutionarily speaking, is why fatty foods are so appealing to us. Now, as for salt, that increases water retention, which of course helps us avoid dehydration, very important for surviving. And our sweet tooth would lead us to sugary berries that were likely edible and away from bitter ones that were likely poisonous. Now, we are also hardwired to desire a variety of foods

because the more types of food that we eat, the more likely we are to get all of the essential vitamins and minerals that we need to stay healthy. And so what we are looking at here is natural preferences for flavors, for variety, that were once very valuable tools for staying alive. And they steer us toward certain types of food. However, those inclinations work against us in our modern lifestyle with hyper food availability. Those instincts have kind of turned against us. We no longer are stalking the plains for dinner. We are roaming the aisles of the supermarket and we have an endless variety

of high calorie indulgences to choose from. And unfortunately, our biology has not adapted to that, has not adapted to the excesses of modern living. And that's why we can't count on them to maintain a healthy body composition for us. That's why it requires a bit of conscious effort to stay healthy. The good news, however, is we can take some specific actions to make it a lot easier to control our urges and to moderate our eating according to our health and body composition goals while enjoying ourselves, while still enjoying our lifestyle according to our health and body composition goals while enjoying ourselves, while still enjoying our lifestyle and enjoying our diet. And that means enjoying every meal, everything that we eat. And that brings me then to my 10 tips, which is going to help you stop

binge eating if that's a problem. Again, if it's a big problem, this might not be enough. But if it's a minor, relatively minor problem, I think this is going to help. It can also help people who just tend to maybe eat more than they want to. Maybe at night they tend to eat too much or when they're bored, they just tend to eat more than they should be eating or stressed and so forth. And so let's start with the first tip. It is avoid restrictive diets. Now, diets that severely restrict calories or certain foods or entire food groups can trigger binge eating by sending you into a tailspin, commonly referred to as the binge restrict cycle. So in the binge restrict cycle, what happens is you restrict foods and this causes

your cravings to increase because often you have to avoid the foods that you really like to eat. Often it is carbs or it is sugar or it is certain types of foods like red meat, for example. And so you have these cravings that are increasing. And then when you indulge those cravings, you feel kind of guilty because you were not supposed to eat food. And then you atone by doubling down on your diet. And that kind of begins the cycle anew. So you restrict the food, crave it, you hold out for as long as you can, you eat it, eat a lot of it, you feel guilty, you try to restrict your food even harder, the cravings come back with a vengeance and so on and so on. And so then a much better option is to follow a flexible diet that allows you to eat all the foods that you like

while emphasizing whole unprocessed nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fish, dairy, nuts, seeds, legumes, and others. And if you wanna learn more about flexible dieting, if you wanna learn how to make that work, how to lose fat and build muscle eating all the foods that you like. For example, head over to legionathletics.com, search for flexible dieting and look for an

article I wrote called how to get the body you want with flexible dieting. It's pretty comprehensive. Moving on to the next tip, which is don't skip meals. Now, this is the opposite of what many people are saying these days because fasting diets are very popular and all of them involve over maybe a six to eight hour period. And then you stop eating. That's one way of going about it. But other fasting diets want you to eat nothing at all for 24 hours once a week or once every other week or once a month. Another type of fasting diet, although it's more just like severe calorie restriction because it

still involves eating food on your quote unquote fasting days, but you have the five, two diet. You maybe have heard of that where you eat normally for five days and then you heavily restrict your food intake for two days. Maybe you eat like 500 calories, basically just protein two days a week and eat normally on the other five days. There's the OMAD diet. That's an acronym, one meal a day where you eat just one meal a day. And that means that you are not eating food for the other 23-ish hours of the day and so on and so on. Now, some people, they like these fasting diets because they condense your daily calories into fewer meals. And for some people, they find that that's more satisfying.

They're eating larger meals and they are able to better stick to their calories and macros by doing that. Some people, for example, are not hungry in the morning. They don't like breakfast. So it works very easy for them to just skip, are not hungry in the morning. They don't like breakfast. So it works very easy for them to just skip breakfast, start eating in the afternoon, eat larger meals, and rinse and repeat. Other people, though, they enjoy breakfast. And research shows that some people tend to eat more food every day when they eat breakfast, and some people tend to eat less food when they're not trying to track or count just freely living some people tend to eat less food. When they're not trying to track or count just freely living, they tend to eat less food because when they eat breakfast, they are

generally less hungry throughout the day. But again, other people experience the exact opposite. So intermittent fasting can work well for some people, and it cannot work well for others. And it cannot work well, especially for people who struggle with regulating the amount of food that they eat, people who are susceptible to binge eating. Research shows that in some people, once that feeding window opens, they really struggle to close it. And so the solution here is simple. If you are following some kind of fasting diet and struggling with overeating, just stop with the fasting diet. Avoid any type of diet that encourages you to skip meals and just stick with a more traditional eating plan, a breakfast, a lunch, dinner, maybe some snacks. And you can play with the meal

compositions and the meal sizes. For example, I prefer to eat light throughout the day and then eat a bigger dinner and eat something after dinner. That's just how I like to eat, mostly because I'm doing a lot of work earlier in the day that requires me to think and to talk good like this. And if I eat a large meal, it just slows me down a little bit because your body goes into that kind of rest and digest mode. And I would rather be in the rest and digest mode later when I'm not doing stuff like this. So that's what works for me, but other people like to do it differently and that's totally fine. And so studies show that that more traditional eating pattern is usually better for

people who give into the temptation to binge a little bit too often that they should stay away from fasting diets. Okay, the next tip is to keep tempting foods out of sight. This one's pretty simple, right? Because the more you have those delicious foods around you, the more likely you are to eat them. If every time you feel just a little bit of hunger, something tasty is nearby, especially if it's just in your desk drawer, for example, it's going to take some serious willpower to avoid overeating. And when you have to say no 10 times an hour or even five times an hour to all of your favorite stuff, eventually you say yes. and then you've already said yes, so you might as well say yes again and yes again and so on. And to avoid that pitfall, you can just make tempting foods

more difficult to access, put them out of sight, banish them to the back of the hard-to-reach cabinet, for example. Or just don't buy them. But if that is too much to ask for, at least don't force yourself to look at them multiple times a day. Hey there, if you are hearing this, you are still listening, which is awesome. Thank you. And if you are enjoying this podcast, or if you just like my podcast in general, and you are getting at least something out of it, would you mind sharing it with a friend or a loved one or a not so loved one even who might want to learn something new? Word of mouth helps really bigly in growing the show. So if you think of someone who might like this episode or another one, please do tell them about it. The next tip here is to fill up on fewer calories. Now, most people think that our body gets used to a certain number of calories every day or a certain

macro breakdown every day when generally speaking, we actually tend to eat the same amount, the same volume of food every day. That's more what our body gets used to. That's also what makes us feel full, at least mostly. It's the absolute volume of the food eaten. It's not the number of calories contained in it to an extent. I mean, calorie density and macronutrient composition do matter as well. A high calorie meal is generally going to be more filling than a low calorie meal and a high protein meal is generally going to be more filling than a low calorie meal. And a high protein meal is generally going to be more filling than a low protein meal. But the volume of food has a major impact on satiety. And our body gets used to a certain volume of food at certain times of the day.

And that's why you could take all the food you usually eat in a day and you could double its calorie content without increasing the volume much. So adding fat would be an easy way to do that. Adding butter, for example, you could add butter to everything that you eat, basically double your total daily caloric intake and still have no trouble finishing at all. You might notice a little bit more fullness, but you would eat all the food and it would be pretty easy. Now, fortunately, we can use that physiological mechanism to our advantage. For example, if you ate a quarter pounder hamburger when you are accustomed to eating a half pound hamburger, let's say that's your lunch every day, let's say it's homemade, right? Make it a little bit healthier. So you

normally have a half a pound of meat, and then you eat a quarter pound of meat, you are probably going to feel hungry when you finish. But if you were to pad out that smaller hamburger with lettuce and tomato and onion, and if you were to make it match the volume of the larger hamburger, you would find that smaller burger about as filling despite containing far fewer calories. And that has been shown in one study in particular. They actually did exactly that. In another study, there was a smoothie basically that was made. And in one condition, the smoothie was, I forget the exact ingredients, and it had a certain number of calories. It was like your basic kind of protein smoothie, right? Some fruit, some milk, I believe

there was some protein powder. And then in the other condition, there was that smoothie, but with less calories. So I think they reduced it by using a lower calorie liquid. They might have used a little bit less fruit, but they whipped air into the smoothie to make it match the volume. So you're drinking the same amount of liquid, but contained far fewer calories. And what the researchers found, again, is that fullness and satiety was about the same in both conditions. So while filling up on fewer calories technically doesn't prevent you from binging, it does help you limit how much you can eat. So if you can take something that you like to eat, and if you can increase the volume of it without greatly

increasing the calories, you can at least eradicate that feeling of guilt that often accompanies a very high calorie binge. All right, tip number five is to start exercising. If you are not already training regularly, you want to start doing that for many reasons. But in the context of binge eating, studies show regular exercise, and that's resistance training, that's cardio, or just going out for a walk every day. If you're not doing anything yet, that is where I would recommend you start. Just start walking every day. Even if it's 15 minutes a day, try to get up to 45 minutes or so of walking. And that plus just kind of walking around in the course of your day-to-day living should be able to easily add up to at least 10,000 steps per day, which is mostly just a marketing message, but it is a good target

to shoot for because it does represent an hour and a half to maybe an hour or 45 minutes of total walking every day. And so studies show that regular exercise, including walking, can help you stop binge eating. For example, in one study conducted by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh, 81% of women who walked three to five times per week for six months stopped binge eating. Just three to five walks per week. That's it. Furthermore, exercise and particularly strength training has been shown to boost self-esteem. And that is significant because low self-esteem is strongly associated with binge

eating. So if you can improve your self-esteem, you may be less likely to binge and strength training is fantastic for improving your self-esteem. Next tip, number six, is to drink enough water. This is a very simple way to quell hunger, which means it also can help dampen the urge to binge. So if you are a little bit hungry, you might actually be a little bit thirsty because your body can perceive those things, or at least you perceive them in the same way. It feels like hunger, but it's actually thirst. So for example, there was a study that was conducted by scientists at Virginia Tech, and in it, people who drank 17 ounces of water before eating food consumed about

13% fewer calories than those who drank nothing. And another study worth mentioning was conducted by scientists at the University of South Carolina. And in this study, researchers found that people who drank around 50 ounces of water a day, so less than a half a gallon per day, ate almost 200 fewer calories per day than people who drank less. And it's possible that drinking more than that can further blunt hunger and further reduce calorie intake. And of course, that was just people freely eating, freely living. They were not controlling their food intake according to a diet or according to any sort of special instructions. And the reason I mention more water drinking is 50 ounces per day is not bad, but most people need a bit more to stay properly hydrated, probably closer to three quarters of a gallon per day. And some people

might need a gallon or even more per day, depending on how much they're sweating. So anyways, the key takeaway here is the next time hunger strikes, drink some water first. It may kill the hunger. And if it doesn't, it can help you eat less when you do eat and generally staying hydrated is going to help keep your appetite under control. And if plain water is just too boring for you, then go with low or no calorie beverages. Drink tea, drink flavored water, drink coffee. You can even have a diet Coke if you want to have a diet Coke. Enjoy it. It's not going to make you fat. It's not going to give you cancer. It's just going to make you think, holy shit, that's delicious. All right. Tip number seven is to be present. Eat mindfully, as people say. Now, what does that mean?

Well, many people mindlessly binge only because they're not concentrating on how much they're eating. They're concentrating on the TV. They're concentrating on their phone. It's usually those things. And that's why studies show people who eat while watching TV tend to overeat and tend to be overweight.

And so an excellent way to combat distractedness at mealtimes is mindful eating. And that is simply a technique that aims to help you gain control of your eating habits and to improve your relationship with food. And it's pretty simple. If you're going to eat mindfully, you want to eat slowly. You want to focus on every bite of food that you take. You want to pay attention to your hunger cues and only eat to the point of being satisfied, not stuffed. You want to concentrate on the food as you're eating it. You want to concentrate on the taste and the texture and the smell and even the appearance of the food. You can even pay attention to how it sounds as you move it in your hands and chew it in your mouth. Again, focusing on the food, seeing what you can notice about it with all of your senses. And mindful eating also involves

approaching food as if it's the first time you've ever tasted it, letting go of any past experiences that you may have had with a food or an ingredient, really trying to experience it newly each time that you eat it. And I know that sounds kind of woo-woo, all of that, but several studies do show that those techniques help people binge less regularly. So next time you eat, sit down, turn the TV off, put your phone down, spend some time thinking about the food you're eating, focusing on the food that you're eating. And one other thing I'll mention is, although eating with others is great, research shows that many people tend to eat more when they are eating with others. So remain cognizant of how much you are eating, how much you are intending to eat,

and don't get so lost in conversation that you find yourself mindlessly eating a couple thousand more calories than you wanted to eat. Okay, tip number nine is reduce stress. Of course, this is on the list, but I need to say it because many people find that the more stressed they are, the more likely they are to binge. Many people eat food simply because they're stressed, not even necessarily binge. They just feel stress and they go to a food that makes them feel comfortable. And there's nothing wrong with that per se. But if it happens too often or if it happens in too large amounts, if it's too extreme, then it becomes a problem. And as far as binge eating goes, just eating way too much food in one sitting. Many people don't know that stress can

prevent you from recognizing when you're full. So if you're stressed, you tend to just eat more than usual because your appetite is a little bit screwy. You're not getting the same satiety cues that you are used to, so you just keep going. And so reducing stress levels is a big part of minimizing the risk of binging and controlling calories and macros in general. And some good ways to do this include listening to classical music. Studies show that classical music sharpens your mind, it engages your emotions, it lowers blood pressure, it can lessen physical pain and depression, and it can help you sleep better. All of those things have been shown in research. Listen to your classical music. I would also recommend consuming less media because research shows that exposing yourself to a constant barrage of what's always bad news increases stress levels. No surprise there, but I need to say it. no more than 30 minutes per day. And if you can get below that, if you can get to 15 or five,

you might be surprised how much it can lower your stress levels if you are spending 60 plus minutes a day consuming news or other types of media that is doom and gloom, doom scrolling, as they say, right? The next tip kind of goes with the last one, and that is spending less time with tech The next tip kind of goes with the last one, and that is spending less time with tech, because studies show that the more people use and feel tied to their computers and cell phones, the more stressed they generally feel. In fact, overuse of technology has even been linked with various symptoms of poor mental health, like depression. Next tip is spending more time with people. So maybe spending less time on the computer, less time on the phone, and then more time with people, especially people you like your nearest and dearest. And studies show that that is one of the best ways to lower stress levels and lower anxiety.

Yoga is another great stress buster. Exercise in general is good for lowering stress, but yoga in particular is good for lowering stress. And research shows that it can also reduce the incidence of binge eating. All right, my final tip for managing binge eating is to eat more protein because one of the primary obstacles that people encounter when trying to not binge is just hunger. And if you eat a high protein diet, that is an excellent way to control hunger. Specifically, research shows that increasing protein intake decreases appetite through several mechanisms, including favorably altering hormones that are related to hunger and fullness. And that satiating effect of protein applies to a high protein diet as well as a high protein

meal. Research shows that high protein meals are more filling than high fat meals, for example, and are also more filling than high carb meals. And the most filling of all are high protein meals with some carbs and fats. So if you can have a mixed meal. So for example, if you have a high protein and high carb meal, what many people don't know is if you add some fat to that meal, it can make it even more filling. Whereas a high fat meal like eating an avocado, for example, not very filling, very fatty, a lot of calories, not very filling. Protein by itself is more filling than carbs.

Carbs by themselves are, with some fat. That's the most filling meal of all. And as far as how much protein you should be eating every day, there are different ways to calculate this. You've probably heard 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. And that works well for people who have a healthy body composition, who are not particularly overweight or obese. But if somebody is overweight or obese, that doesn't quite work because let's say a woman weighs 250 pounds. Does she need to eat 250 grams of protein per day? No, she does not. So in that case, you could say, well, how about 30 to 40% of total daily calories from protein? That's another way to do it. It requires a little bit of mathing though. And so my preferred alternative measurement is one gram of protein per centimeter of height per day. That works out really well for basically everybody, regardless of their current body composition. All right,

so I've shared my 10 tips for binge eating less, for better controlling binge eating. What should you do when it happens though? Because even if you do everything that I said, there still are probably going to be some times when you overindulge. Maybe it's not an all out binge, but it is a bit too much. Now, many people feel regret after doing something like that because they think that it is a dietary transgression and indiscretion and it's going to thwart their ability to reach their goals.

However, if you instead just show yourself the same compassion and forgiveness that you would show a friend, it can help you better accept that you made a mistake, accept responsibility for that, and just steam ahead unfazed. And it's also worth considering that any damage that you might cause by overeating, even overeating to an extreme degree, it's probably not as bad as you think, because no matter how much you eat, you can't gain more than probably a pound and a half, maybe two pounds of fat in a day. And to do that, two pounds of fat, well, that would require, let's just say an extra probably eight to 9,000 calories. So that means eight to 9,000 calories more than you burned

that day. And a lot of those calories are going to have to be from dietary fat, not from carbs. It's going to have to be a lot of dietary fat. There can be some carbs in there, but not much protein because protein is not converted to body fat. Essentially, there's no physiological mechanism whereby the body can convert protein into body fat. Carbohydrates can be converted into body fat, but it's a very inefficient process. And research shows that it doesn't really start to kick in until you have eaten a ton of carbs several days in a row. In one study, subjects needed to eat, I believe it was about a thousand grams of carbs per day for several days in a row before their bodies really started to convert a portion of

those carbs into body fat. Dietary fat, however, can be converted into body fat very easily because it's chemically similar to body fat. So if you wanted to gain two pounds of fat in a day, again, eight to 9,000 calories more than you burn. So let's say you burn 2,500 calories in the day. All right, you need to, let's just call it 12,000 calories. That's your target for the day. And a lot of fat, a lot of carbs, and not a lot of protein. That's how you do it. And that's to gain just two pounds of fat that you could lose in one week of dieting fairly easily if you wanted to. So if in a meal you ate 2000 calories, it was a mixed meal. There's some

meat in there. So let's say it was kind of a high protein meal, high carb meal, moderate fat meal. How much body fat are you going to gain from that meal? Not very much. And how much body fat are you going to gain if let's say for the day the day, you are now 2,000 or 3,000 calories over your expenditure? Not very much. Not even a pound, maybe a half a pound, maybe even less, depending on, again, exactly what you ate and some other metabolic factors. And so, let's say, worst case scenario, your binge put on a half a pound of fat. You could lose that in literally a couple of days of aggressive dieting, which of course you can get away with if you're dieting for a few days. If you wanted to, you could eat, even if you're a muscular dude, you could eat 1500

calories for a couple of days, high protein if you wanted to and lose that fat. So just remember that when you do slip up and you do eat and or drink too much, it's really not that big of a deal. It only becomes a big deal if you do it too often. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or

just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear

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