Why You Keep Letting Yourself Down: The Food Restriction-Overeating Cycle
Have you ever felt like you're caught between two very different ways of eating? Maybe you spend a period of time being extremely careful with food: following your rules, avoiding certain foods, or trying hard to eat “perfectly”, and then eventually find yourself right back where you started, or even worse off. Afterward, you may feel frustrated with yourself and decide that the answer is to be even more disciplined next time.
If you can relate, you’re not alone! This can create a pretty exhausting cycle for many people, especially when we're taught to think about food restriction and overeating as completely opposite behaviors. One is often viewed as having too much control (or really good willpower), while the other is viewed as losing control. But the research suggests that the relationship between the two isn't always that simple.
A New Way of Looking At This Food Cycle
A recent paper published in the Journal of Eating Disorders caught my eye. It had an interesting perspective on this cycle. Authors David A. Wiss, PhD, and Alan C. Logan, PhD, brought together research on eating disorders, addiction, brain development, stress, family history, and highly processed foods to introduce a broader model for understanding why some people develop problematic eating patterns. Their overarching idea: there may be different roads that can eventually lead to similar struggles with food.
For some people, the road may involve a strong need for control. This could apply to you if you are naturally a perfectionist or uncomfortable with uncertainty. Food can become an area where rules and routines provide a sense of safety or predictability. Over time, those rules can become increasingly restrictive.
For others, the challenge may have more to do with impulsivity, reward, or difficulty stopping once eating begins. If this resonates with you, certain foods or eating scenarios may feel especially hard to resist, and you may genuinely struggle to do something different even when you want to. It’s important to note that these aren't two neat categories, and you don't need to fit into one or the other. Someone can have characteristics of both, and their experience can change over time.
Why Individual Differences Matter
We already have research showing that certain personality traits can be associated with different eating-disorder patterns. For example, researchers have found a meaningful relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anorexia nervosa. A large Swedish study following individuals and their families found evidence of genetic overlap between the conditions. This doesn't mean that having OCD or being a perfectionist causes an eating disorder, but it does suggest that traits involving rigidity and compulsive behavior may be relevant for some people.
On the other side, ADHD has also been associated with an increased likelihood of eating disorders, particularly binge-eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. Researchers believe factors such as impulse control, attention, executive functioning, & the brain's response to rewards may help explain some of this relationship.
The takeaway isn't that a particular diagnosis or personality trait determines how someone will eat. It's that two people can experience very similar eating behaviors for very different reasons.
And these differences matter when we're deciding what kind of support might actually help.
Does Restriction Cause Overeating?
This is where things get very interesting. You've probably heard the idea that restricting food inevitably leads to overeating: you deprive yourself, become increasingly hungry and preoccupied with food, eventually “fall off the wagon”, and then eat much more than you intended. There is evidence that dietary restriction can contribute to binge eating for some people. Physiological hunger and psychological deprivation can both influence eating behavior, which is one reason reducing rigid dietary restraint is an important component of many eating-disorder interventions.
However, research doesn't support the idea that restriction is always the starting point or the only explanation. A 2023 study examining dietary restriction in people with binge-eating disorder found that restriction did not consistently predict binge eating later that same day. This distinction is important because some people experience uncontrollable eating before they ever develop significant dietary restriction. They may then respond to that experience by dieting, eliminating foods, skipping meals, or creating stricter rules in an attempt to regain control. Over time, the restriction and overeating can become intertwined, even though restriction wasn't necessarily what initiated the problem.
So rather than assuming that every person follows the following pattern: restriction → overeating, it may be more accurate to recognize that the direction can vary. And for some people, both processes may be happening at the same time! Does this resonate with you?
What About Food Addiction?
Another part of this conversation involves the growing research around addiction-like eating and highly processed foods. It's important to be careful with terminology here. “Food addiction” is NOT currently a formal DSM-5 diagnosis, and there is ongoing scientific debate about how the addiction framework should be applied to eating.
At the same time, some people experience patterns such as intense cravings, difficulty cutting back, continued consumption despite negative consequences, and significant preoccupation with certain foods. The 2026 paper by Wiss and Logan incorporates emerging research on this topic into its proposed model, particularly in relation to highly processed foods and reward-related eating.
That does not mean that everyone who enjoys highly processed foods has an addiction, nor does it mean that these foods should automatically be eliminated. Instead, it gives us another reason to consider individual differences.
Your Eating History Matters
One of the most useful ideas to take from this research is that the behavior we see today doesn't necessarily tell us how the problem developed.
When I'm trying to understand someone's relationship with food, I don't just want to know what they're eating now. I want to understand what came before it.
For example:
Did years of dieting and food restriction come before the uncontrollable eating?
Did moments of overeating happen even when the person wasn't restricting?
Are food rules becoming increasingly rigid?
Does eating feel especially difficult during periods of stress or poor sleep?
Are certain foods associated with intense cravings or difficulty stopping?
Does the person compensate afterward by skipping meals, fasting, exercising, or starting another diet?
How much time and mental energy is being spent thinking about food?
These questions don't diagnose an eating disorder, but they can help reveal what might be maintaining the pattern. And that is much more useful than simply asking someone to have more self-control.
What Can You Do With This Information?
If you're recognizing yourself in this cycle, the first step isn't necessarily to change your diet. Start by paying attention to the pattern.
If restriction is a major part of your eating history, consider whether increasingly strict rules are actually helping or whether they're making you more preoccupied with food. Regular and adequate nourishment, along with gradually developing more flexibility around eating, may be important areas to work on with an eating-disorder-informed professional.
If you're experiencing loss-of-control eating (sometimes called bingeing) even when you're eating adequately and aren't intentionally restricting, it may be worth looking beyond restriction. Stress, sleep, emotional regulation, impulsivity, reward sensitivity, environmental cues, and learned behaviors can all influence eating, so simply being told to “stop dieting” may not address everything contributing to the problem.
And if you're experiencing both restriction and loss-of-control eating, you may need an approach that addresses both sides rather than following a single philosophy about food.
A few things can be useful:
Pay attention to the entire day, not just the food moment.
Instead of focusing only on what you ate during a loss-of-control moment, look at what happened beforehand. Going long periods without eating, consistently eating too little, or trying to “save calories” earlier in the day may be important clues.Notice what happens afterwards.
If overeating is consistently followed by fasting, skipping meals, eliminating foods, or another restrictive plan, you may be unintentionally restarting the same cycle.Look beyond food when necessary.
If your eating changes dramatically when you're stressed, exhausted, anxious, or emotionally overwhelmed, addressing those factors may be just as important as changing what you eat.Be cautious about adding more rules.
If your primary struggle is rigidity and fear around food, another set of nutritional rules, even well-intentional ones, may reinforce the problem rather than solve it.Get individualized support when you need it.
If you're regularly experiencing binge eating, significant restriction, compensatory behaviors (over-exercising, purging, etc), or persistent thoughts about food that interfere with your daily life, an eating-disorder-informed dietitian like myself and/or therapist can help you understand the pattern and determine what approach makes sense for you.
Although the 2026 paper by David A. Wiss, PhD, and Alan C. Logan, PhD doesn't give us a definitive answer for every person, it does encourage a more individualized way of thinking about eating behavior, one that considers development, biology, behavioral traits, stress, environment, & personal history rather than reducing the problem to willpower alone.
And this is something I think we all (patients and practitioners) can appreciate!
So if you've been caught in this cycle, instead of asking yourself, “Why can't I control myself?”, consider asking two different questions:
“What is contributing to this pattern?”
“What kind of support would actually address it?”
These two questions may lead you somewhere much more helpful than another diet ever could.
If you’re interested in reading the full, original work of David A. Wiss and Alan C. Logan, CLICK HERE for the link!
If you’re interested in reading a summary article on this topic written by one of the authors of the original research, CLICK HERE for the link!
Helpful Links: