People diet with one thought in mind – to lose weight.  Unfortunately, for them the body does not realise this is the intention and interprets the lack of food as a period of famine.  It reacts in a number of ways, but, the outcome is usually the same, they have a lapse and break one of their diet rules.  Followed by ‘I’ve blown it’ followed by a binge, which is usually, followed by fur

At first sight bulimia seems to solve the problem of bingeing.  People with bulimia can restrict – binge – purge (problem solved) – get back to their restricting and weight loss.

But, unfortunately as with most things nutritionally,

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’

Like dieting, bulimia seems to work in the short term, but the body soon responds, and the weight goes back on and more so.  As a way of losing weight bulimia does not work.

‘Of course, it works’ you might say, ‘if a person vomits their food, surely they won’t get fat’.

Well you might think that, on the surface it sounds reasonable, but you would be wrong. Ask yourself this.  ‘If bulimia worked, why aren’t all bulimics ‘stick thin’ in fact most bulimics normal weight or overweight.’  Just let that sink in.

In fact, bulimia actually makes weight loss much more difficult.

It goes without saying that bulimia is very dangerous and can be fatal.  But let’s put the health issues on one side and see if bulimia is an effective way of losing weight?

But, Tony, you might say, ‘If it doesn’t work why do people persist in doing it for years.’  That is a very good question. Ironically, people get locked into bulimia, BECAUSE it does not work,

One of the main reasons people persist in bulimia although it does not work, is the fear that they will get fat if they stop (vomiting, laxative abuse, over exercising).  At one level you can understand how people would think along these lines.  It goes something like,

‘I am trying to lose weight, I am good at sticking to my diet, but, I keep breaking down and bingeing.  I purge to make up for the binge.  I’m not losing weight but at least I’m not gaining weight from the binges’

‘I am trying to lose weight, I am pretty good at sticking to my diet, but, I keep breaking down and bingeing.  I purge to make up for the binge.  I’m not losing weight but at least I’m not gaining weight from the binges’

‘I am trying to lose weight, but, no matter how hard I try, I keep bingeing.  I purge to make up for the binges.  Even though I’m purging, I’m gaining weight – just think how big/fat I would be if I didn’t purge?’

Purging does NOT work

Purging in bulimia takes 3 main forms, laxative abuse, over-exercising and vomiting.  Let’s, look at each of these in turn, to see if they work.

Where do I begin.  Laxative abuse is extremely painful, it has long term health consequences and it DOES NOT work.  Most food is digested in the small intestine, before what is left is passed to the large intestine.  But laxatives only work on the large intestine by which time over 90% of what will be digested, has already been digested.

Yes, you feel thinner, but basically you have gone through considerable pain (and the pain can be agonising) to basically lose water.  Water that will be reabsorbed with your next drink.

I won’t go into the numerous often long term negative effects of abusing laxatives (which are horrendous), But, as a way of compensating for a binge, it is completely useless.

This is a variation on the ‘calories in calories out myth’.  ‘Oh no!’you’ve had a binge – no problem, just go for a run in the morning and work it off.

But is this realistic?  If you have a small binge say 1000 calories, you will have to run around 16 miles at 5mph to burn that off – that’s well over a half marathon.  Do you really have over 3 hours for that run in the morning? Face it, it’s not going to happen and a quick trot round the block won’t even scratch the surface.

Oh, by the way, the average binge is around 3000 calories.  I’ll let you do the maths

You might concede that laxatives and exercising are worse that useless for getting rid of the extra calories from a binge.  But surely, vomiting works.  You can’t digest food that’s not in your body.

You might think that, but you would be wrong.  When you binge you usually eat lots of foods that are rapidly digested (sweet fatty food).  A large amount of this food is actually digested even before you’ve finished eating. So even if you purge immediately after bingeing a lot of the food is already digested.  When I explain this to my clients, they often reply with some variation of:

‘Yes, but, that just the rubbish they tell you, to put you off being bulimic?  I know that food stays in the stomach for 2 to 3 hours and very little if any food is absorbed by the stomach. 

It’s obvious if I throw the food up while it is still in the stomach it can’t be absorbed by my body and I won’t gain weight.’

I know that there is a lot of information on very dodgy forums out there, saying that you can empty your stomach by vomiting.  In extreme cases this might be just be possible, but in reality, no matter how hard you try, you will still have food in their stomach and this will be digested.

Even after vomiting, around 1200 calories of food remain in the body and this will be digested.  That’s 1200 calories, even if you vomit directly after eating (and most have that zoned out period after the binge).  That is the equivalent of 2 large meals, just let that sink in….

Far from a method of losing weight, bulimia is a great way of gaining weight.

A better weight control method would be to eat a really nice meal of around 600 calories rather than a round of bingeing and purging and gaining 1200 calories.  I know which is more fun.

To answer the question ‘does bulimia help you lose weight’.  The answer is a resounding ‘NO it doesn’t work, it doesn’t help you lose weight.  In fact it makes weight loss much more difficult.

If you want to find out more about how to recover from bulimia or binge eating, help is available on my website book a 30 minute free assessment.