Eat your normal breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack on the day of the dinner. Do not save up for it. Arriving at a restaurant having eaten nothing since morning is the single most reliable way to turn a meal into an episode, and the risky hour is usually not the meal at all, it is the one after you get home.
That is the plan. The rest is what to do about the buffet, the relative who comments, and the flight.
Do not save up
Every instinct says otherwise. There is a big meal coming, so eat less beforehand and balance it out.
What that actually does is put you in front of the food with several hours of hunger and a strong sense of deprivation, which are the two pressures Beat names as leading people to binge. You then eat in a way that feels out of control, in public, which produces the shame, which produces tomorrow's rules.
So the day of a meal out is an ordinary day. Breakfast, lunch, the mid-afternoon snack in particular. It sounds counter-intuitive and it is the same principle as the whole stream, set out in [eating enough is the intervention](/guides/food/eating-enough-is-the-intervention).
The plan for one meal
Small and specific, decided before you leave the house.
**Before.** Eat normally that day. Look at the menu in advance if that reduces the panic, and pick something you actually want rather than the thing that looks most defensible. Decide roughly what time you are leaving.
**Arriving.** Sit where you would rather sit, near a door if that helps. Get a drink in your hand early, which gives you something to do with the first ten minutes.
**During.** Eat at the table's pace, not faster. If you eat much more quickly than everyone else, put the cutlery down between mouthfuls for the first few minutes and let the pace settle.
**Leaving.** Have an exit time in mind. Being able to go without a negotiation makes staying much easier.
**After.** This is the hour that matters. Getting home, alone, keyed up from an evening of being watched, is the most common point for an episode. Decide in advance what happens then: a shower, a phone call, a programme with someone, going straight to bed. An undecided hour tends to get filled by the old routine. The twenty minute routine in [getting through the urge to binge](/guides/food/getting-through-the-urge-to-binge) is for exactly that gap.
Buffets and holidays
The difference with a holiday is duration. One meal you can plan. Ten days you cannot micromanage, and trying to is its own trap.
Three things that hold up over a week.
**Keep the rhythm, whatever the food is.** Roughly three to four hours between eating in daylight. It will not look like it does at home, and it does not need to. The structure is the thing that transfers, not the menu.
**Do not skip a meal to make room.** The all-inclusive dinner is not improved by having missed lunch.
**Expect the middle days to be hardest.** Novelty carries the first two, and by day four the routine that was holding things together at home is gone. That is worth knowing rather than being ambushed by.
At a buffet, one trip and one plate is a workable habit rather than a rule, and the reason is practical: repeated trips make eating continuous and hard to notice.
The relative who comments on your plate
They will. Have one flat sentence and use the same one every time.
- To "are you sure you want that?" or "are you being good?": *"I'm eating normally at the moment, thanks."*
- To "you've hardly touched it": *"I'm fine, thanks."*
- To a diet conversation you are trapped in: *"I'm not doing that, but tell me about the trip."* Then ask them something.
Two rules for yourself. Do not explain, because explaining is an invitation to a longer conversation about your body at a table. And do not adjust what you eat because of what they said, in either direction, because that is their comment writing your evening.
If it is someone you see often, it is worth asking once, away from the table, for the one specific thing: do not comment on my food. [Telling someone about binge eating](/guides/food/telling-someone-about-binge-eating) has the words.
Drinking
Alcohol lowers the part of you that had a plan, and it commonly comes with eating late and afterwards. That is not a reason to abstain if you do not want to. It is a reason to decide beforehand how much you are drinking and what happens when you get in, rather than deciding both at eleven at night.
When to skip the thing altogether
Sometimes the right answer is not to go. A buffet with a person who comments on your plate, in the week you started treatment, is not a test you owe anyone.
But watch the pattern. If declining becomes automatic, the world quietly shrinks to the rooms where nobody watches you eat, and that isolation is its own problem. A useful test: are you saying no because of this specific occasion, or because of every occasion? If it is every occasion, that is worth raising with a GP or with whoever is treating you.
If it goes wrong
Then it went wrong, and the response is the same as always: the next meal at the normal time, in the normal way. Not a fast, not a compensating day, not a rule made on the drive home. [You binged, what now](/guides/food/you-binged-what-now) is the page for that morning.
Beat's helplines are open 3pm to 8pm, Monday to Friday: England 0808 801 0677, Scotland 0808 801 0432, Wales 0808 801 0433, Northern Ireland 0808 801 0434. No diagnosis needed, calls free from UK landlines and mobiles and not itemised. Beat does "not operate a crisis service" and its staff are "not medically trained". If you are in danger tonight, Samaritans is 116 123, any hour.
Common questions
**Should I eat less during the day if I am going out for dinner?** No. Saving up produces hunger and deprivation, which is exactly what leads people to binge. Eat your normal meals, including the afternoon snack, and go out fed.
**What do I say when someone comments on what I am eating?** One flat sentence, the same one every time, then change the subject. "I'm eating normally at the moment, thanks." Explaining invites a longer conversation about your body at a dinner table.
**How do I get through a holiday?** Keep the rhythm rather than the menu: something roughly every three to four hours, no skipped meals to make room, and a bit of extra planning around the middle days when the novelty wears off.
**The worst bit is when I get home. What do I do?** Decide the hour before you go out. A shower, a call, going straight to bed, anything with a shape. That gap after a social meal is where most episodes start, and an undecided hour gets filled by the old routine.
**Should I just avoid eating with people until I am better?** Not as a policy. Skipping one specific difficult occasion is fine. Avoiding all of them tends to shrink your life to the rooms where nobody sees you eat, which makes everything else harder. If avoidance is becoming the default, say so to a GP. [NHS treatment, Beat and the fellowships](/guides/food/nhs-treatment-beat-and-the-fellowships) sets out the routes.
Sources
- [Beat, Binge eating disorder](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/about-eating-disorders/types/binge-eating-disorder/). Restriction and food rules leading to bingeing through hunger and deprivation.
- [NICE guideline NG69, Recommendations](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng69/chapter/Recommendations). Regular meals and snacks, and the advice against dieting during treatment.
- [NHS, Binge eating disorder overview](https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/binge-eating/overview/). The condition, its symptoms and the main treatments.
- [Beat, Helplines](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/get-help-for-myself/i-need-support-now/helplines/). Numbers, hours, and the limits of the service.
