"Why do I keep doing this?" —Bingeing, eating past fullness, and what your body might actually be looking for
Something that I hear a lot is this particular kind of confusion that people share with me about habitually eating beyond fullness or binging to the point of physical pain. What bothers them more than the discomfort of each episode is the bewilderment as to ‘why did I do that again?’ and ‘why do I keep doing it?’
Whether its outwardly said or not, it so often comes with a belief that something about them is wrong, broken or not trying hard enough and if they could just find more willpower or the right plan then it wouldn't happen again.
I’m a firm believer that none of the patterns we repeatedly play out are just ‘bad habits’ or signs of ‘not coping’, but actually have, or have had, some kind of positive intention behind them. It might seem difficult to see that when we logically know what we are doing isn’t ultimately working for us, but understanding what's happening at a less conscious level can change how we relate to the behaviour and that offers us more choice.
First — let me tell you about ‘proprioception’.
Proprioception is one of the senses that forms our body awareness -along with interception and our vestibular sense. Unlike the 5 senses we are more familiar with - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - these body awareness senses and more internal and hep us to feel into our internal world. Proprioception tells us where our body is in space by helping us sense the position of our body parts and gauge how much effort we are using when we move. It tells us how tightly we're gripping something, allows us to touch our nose with our eyes closed, and feel the position of our limbs without looking. It also lets us know whether we feel present in ourselves or sort of... vague and unmoored.
Proprioception also gives us something that I think isn’t talked about enough:
a felt sense of having edges
of being a body that begins somewhere and ends somewhere
of being contained.
And here's the thing — when we're stressed, overwhelmed, emotionally flooded, or just running on empty, that sense of containment can quietly slip. We might feel restless or buzzy or a bit unreal. Not always in a dramatic way. Sometimes it's just a low-level feeling of not quite being settled in ourselves.
When that happens, the body goes looking for ways to feel solid again. This is called proprioceptive seeking — and it's completely instinctive. We do it without knowing we're doing it.
So what does this have to do with eating to fullness?
Quite a lot, it turns out.
The physical sensation of fullness — that heavy, present, anchored feeling in the body — is actually a really effective source of proprioceptive input. It gives the body something real and substantial to feel. A kind of weight that says: you are here. You exist. You have edges.
Which is why, for many of us, eating past fullness isn't really about the food. Or not only about the food. It's about the feeling the food creates. The body has learned — probably without us ever consciously deciding this — that this particular feeling helps. That it brings us back into ourselves when something has knocked us sideways.
And that is why we can find ourselves doing it again even when we're already uncomfortable. The body isn't being chaotic or self-destructive. It's repeating something that has worked, at a deeper level, as regulation. As a way of coming home to itself.
It’s not about willpower
I think the narrative most of us carry about bingeing or eating to fullness is a shame-based one. That we're out of control. That we should know better. That something is broken in us.
But what if it's actually the body doing something quite logical? Trying to meet a real, felt need — with the tools it has?
That doesn't mean it doesn't also bring distress. It often does. But there's a difference between a behaviour that's chaotic and one that has a function — even if that function has been invisible to us until now.
When we start to see the function, we can get curious rather than just critical. We can ask: what is my body actually looking for here? And from there — slowly, without forcing anything — we can start to explore whether there are other ways to offer it that.
A note if you're neurodivergent
Proprioceptive seeking is particularly common in people with ADHD, autism, or sensory processing differences, who often need more physical input than others to feel grounded and present. This may be one of the contributing factor as to why neurodivergent people are at significantly higher risk of disordered eating — when food becomes the main route to that regulating, containing feeling, it can gradually become the only route.
I know how much energy goes into trying to make sense of these patterns — and how defeating it can feel when you feel stuck in them and maybe also powerless to them. This might not be the complete answer, but it can be a piece in the puzzle that makes the rest feel a little less shameful. For a lot of people it opens something up - a bit of breathing room, a sense that ‘oh — maybe I'm not just broken’ (You’re not).
Other ways we can meet that need
Once we understand that the body is seeking something — containment, groundedness, a felt sense of being present in itself — we can start to get curious about other ways of offering it that. Not as replacements to police ourselves with, but as a growing menu of options.
Some things that can provide similar proprioceptive input are:
Heavy or resistive movement — lifting, pushing, carrying, digging in the garden. Anything that asks the muscles to work against something.
Tight or weighted sensations — a heavy blanket, wrapping up in something snug, even a firm hug.
Chewing — crunchy or chewy foods can actually be a genuine source of proprioceptive input, which is worth knowing if snacking patterns feel hard to unpick.
Slow, deliberate movement — yoga, stretching, or simply walking with attention to how the feet meet the ground.
Cold water — a cold shower or splashing the face can jolt us back into the body quickly.
Breathwork — particularly exhale-focused breathing, which can create a felt sense of settling and containment.
Movement and exercise deserves its own conversation really — because it can be both one of the most effective ways of meeting proprioceptive needs and something that becomes complicated in its own right for people with disordered eating. I'll be writing more about that soon. [I’ll pop a link to that movement and proprioceptive seeking blog here once I’ve written it)
The point isn't to swap one behaviour for another, or to create a new set of rules. It's more that when we have more options available to us — ones we've actually tried and noticed the effect of — choice starts to feel more real.
What you might want to take from this
This isn’t about a fix or a new plan. It’s perhaps just a slightly different way of looking at something that may make these patterns feel less shameful or bewildering.
The body is not your enemy in this. It has been trying, in the way it knows how, to feel okay. To feel real. To feel like itself.
That's not something to be ashamed of. That's something to get curious about.