Have you ever followed a strict diet, only to end up eating everything in sight, completely out of control? What happens when an attempt to control food turns into an overwhelming urge to eat? Most people who experience bulimic episodes tend to engage in restrictive dieting.
Why should we care about bulimia—or more specifically, a bulimic episode (binge eating)? Because it is a key warning sign in three major eating disorders: bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and the binge-eating/purging type of anorexia nervosa. And as if that weren’t enough, the episode itself becomes a driving force, perpetuating an endless vicious cycle.
What Triggers the Urge to Eat?
It’s a question most of us have asked ourselves at some point. And the answer? It’s neither simple nor singular. The contributing factors resemble a puzzle that’s difficult to complete—except for one major piece: dieting. As Christopher Fairburn, a leading authority on eating disorders, notes, dieting is the most thoroughly documented risk factor and often precedes episodes of bulimia. In fact, research shows that adolescents who follow strict diets are eight times more likely to develop bulimia nervosa than those who do not.
Individuals with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa often attempt to follow extremely rigid eating plans—sets of rules about what, when, and how much they are “allowed” to eat. The problem? These rules eventually break. And when they do, a downward spiral begins: a minor slip can quickly escalate into a full-blown bulimic episode. In this way, dieting—rather than offering support—becomes the primary trigger for bulimic behavior.
And what follows a bulimic episode? Usually, a storm of emotions: disgust, guilt, and intense fear of weight gain. These feelings rarely remain still for long—they quickly transform into pressure to “make up for” the binge. As a result, individuals often resort to compensatory behaviors, including severely restrictive dieting that borders on starvation (e.g., fasting for 20 hours or more). While this might seem like a temporary solution, the reality is more complicated: the fleeting sense of relief is accompanied by diminished self-worth, making the individual even more vulnerable to future episodes. So dieting ends up being not just the starting point of bulimia episodes—it also becomes their aftermath. A vicious cycle in which dieting fuels bulimia and helps it maintain its hold indefinitely.
Change the ‘All or Nothing’ Mentality – Stop Dieting
It might seem counterintuitive, but the first step to breaking the vicious cycle of bulimia is to stop dieting. Yes—you read that right. Strict diets based on rigid “all or nothing” rules create intense internal pressure, which increases vulnerability to bulimic episodes.
Establishing a regular eating pattern—three main meals and two to three snacks per day—is considered a crucial strategy. It helps regulate hunger and reduces the risk of impulsive overeating.
This meal plan should be clear and structured, with specific guidance on what to eat, how much, and in what context—that is, where and when meals will be consumed. As David Garner explains, the aim is to adopt a “mechanical” eating routine: meals at predetermined times, regardless of hunger levels or emotions. In this way, food becomes a form of “treatment,” much like medicine, helping to “vaccinate” against future bulimic episodes. Mechanical eating helps reduce food cravings and weakens the urge to binge.
Important: the foods in your regular diet should not be labeled as “good” or “bad.” The weekly plan should include a wide variety of foods—including those once considered “off-limits” or previously associated with bulimic episodes. These so-called “trigger” foods should be gradually reintroduced in small amounts, preferably on days when you feel emotionally stable and confident. There are no inherently fattening foods—what matters is how much you eat. A single bite of a high-calorie food is not a failure, and eating a small portion won’t necessarily trigger a binge. In fact, these foods can be reframed as tools for healing: by normalizing them, they lose their emotional power, and your cravings become more manageable.
Will I Gain Weight If I Stop Dieting?
You’ve let go of dieting, and now you’re wondering… will the scale reveal a disaster or reflect progress? According to research by Professor Christopher Fairburn’s team at the University of Oxford, individuals who completed treatment for bulimia showed, on average, no significant change in body weight over the following sixteen months. Naturally, this is an average—some people lost weight, others gained, and some remained the same.
Similarly, David Garner emphasizes that structured, regular eating helps maintain a healthy body weight, in contrast to extreme dieting, which—apart from being unsustainably restrictive—often triggers bulimic episodes. Whether the number on the scale shifts or stays the same, the real focus should be on overcoming bulimia and regaining a sense of balance and freedom in your relationship with food.
In conclusion:
- Dieting often precedes bulimic episodes.
- Dieting is also a consequence of bulimic episodes.
- Dieting does not resolve bulimia—it fuels it.
- Establishing regular eating patterns is a key strategy for breaking the Diet–Bulimia cycle.
What’s Next: Bulimia as a Way of Coping with Difficult Emotions
Bulimic episodes are influenced by more than just dieting. In the next article of this series, we’ll delve into the powerful role of negative emotional states—such as anxiety and depression—in triggering bulimic behavior, and explore how bulimia can become a way of managing or escaping distressing emotions.
Palikroussis L. Thomas, Psychologist, MSc, PhD(c)
