After eating a seriously large amount of food, to the point where you cannot even really move, think, or function properly, you’ll begin wondering why you just did that to yourself. You will also be wondering what your options are to find relief quickly. For answers, check out our Recovery From Quantity Food Challenges article. There are many things you can do that will gradually help you feel better, but know that relief will definitely not be very instant. You should have considered that before you even signed up for the challenge or took your first bite of the meal. As everyone already knows, there is one way to achieve instant relief, but the purpose of this article is to explain why making yourself throw up is not a very healthy or smart solution to your self inflicted problem. Throwing up one time or even twice on purpose is one thing, but consistently throwing up after overeating can lead to very serious health issues over time. These are the dangers of making yourself throw up after meals:

The Dangers Of Making Yourself Throw Up After Challenges

1. Your body will become more prone to throwing up – The human body is very good at gradually adapting to changes that you want it to make. If you lift weights properly, those muscles you are working will become stronger so that you can lift heavier weights. If you perform cardiovascular exercises regularly, your body will adapt so that you can continually perform those activities at a higher level for longer periods of time. If you do Stomach Capacity Training properly, you can gradually increase your maximum stomach capacity so that you can consume more food in one sitting than you previously could. On the other hand, if you continually throw up after overeating during large quantity food challenges, your body will adapt and become more prone to throwing up on its own. If this adaptation occurs, you will begin having issues towards the end of finishing large eating challenges, and you will find yourself throwing up more often without even trying to. In most cases, “getting sick” before completing the challenge means disqualification, and you obviously don’t want that. Not only is chronic puking bad for your health, but it can also lead to a decreased ability to win big eating competitions.

2. Serious dehydration and body fluid imbalances – Especially if you throw up just about “everything” after finishing your giant meal, you eliminate a very significant amount of stomach acid, water, and other vital body fluids. This creates temporary imbalances in most of your fluids until your body adapts and balances all of your fluid levels back to normal. If you do throw up after a meal, whether it is on purpose or just by accident, it is crucial that you consume plenty of water directly afterwards. If you don’t, you can potentially begin suffering from dehydration and all of your body processes will slow down and suffer too. Water also helps flush away the stomach acid remaining in your esophagus and mouth from when you did throw up. For more information about the benefits of water and staying hydrated, read Water Is Nature’s Ultimate Digestive Aid. As you will learn below, chronic imbalances in body fluids can create severe health issues over a period of time. While you may find relief much quicker by throwing up, you are damaging your long term health which is more important.

3. Your stomach acid will erode your teeth and mouth – Hopefully you already know this, but stomach acid is very highly acidic. On the pH scale of zero to fourteen, with zero being the most acidic and fourteen being the most alkaline, gastric acid measures between 1.5 to 3.5, depending on the individual. Your stomach acid has to be very acidic so that it can chemically digest all the food and liquids you consume. When you throw up after eating massive amounts of food, a large amount of stomach acid comes up along with all that food. Over a long period of chronic puking, that stomach acid will continually eat away at your teeth enamel and other tissues in your mouth. This will lead to severe mouth and dental issues, a lot more serious than getting a few cavities.

4. You will begin suffering from acid reflux or ulcers – Stomach acid will not just cause problems with your teeth and mouth as mentioned directly above in #3. Gastric acid will also potentially create problems in your stomach and esophagus. After a period of chronic puking, you may begin suffering from stomach ulcers and acid reflux disease. A peptic ulcer is a painful defect in the lining of the stomach or the first part of the small intestine called the duodenum. Gastric ulcers in your stomach are the end result of an imbalance between digestive fluids in the stomach. A duodenal ulcer in your small intestine is the end result of an imbalance between digestive fluids in your duodenum. As mentioned in #2 above, throwing up can cause these imbalances. Over time, these chronic imbalances will eventually cause noticeable stomach problems that are very hard to recover from and fix. Acid reflux disease (gastroesophageal reflux disease) is a condition in which the stomach contests (food or liquid) leak backwards from the stomach into the esophagus (the tube connecting your mouth and stomach). This action can irritate the esophagus, causing serious heartburn and other negative symptoms. Chronic puking over time can both create and worsen acid reflux and allow your stomach acid to damage your esophagus too.

5. You can eventually begin suffering from bulimia – Before explaining this point, I’d like to be clear that this article is not about the dangers of bulimia, which are much more significant and intense. Bulimia Nervosa is a very harmful disease and eating disorder with a very unhealthy mindset. I read multiple articles about bulimia before writing this particular article just to make sure that we included all of the major dangers that stem from chronic puking over a period of time. If you are seeking information about the overall dangers of bulimia, the eating disorder, please click here for an extremely informative article about Bulimia Nervosa that includes a detailed explanation, signs, symptoms, treatment, and how to find help. This particular FoodChallenges.com article is for people that don’t have a bulimic mindset, but feel that it is perfectly fine to just throw up if they know they ate too much and are not feeling well. As said in the beginning of this article, throwing up just once or twice is one thing, but throwing up often after eating too much is an entirely different story that can be very harmful to your body in the long run. Those issues are mentioned up above in #1 through #4. While throwing up is physically damaging and may just be occasional for you, it can eventually lead into a bulimic mindset. For lack of a better term, throwing up after food challenges and big meals could possibly be a “gateway” into doing it more and more often, which then basically turns into you suffering from the eating disorder Bulimia Nervosa. The chances of this happening are very rare, but the chance is still there, and must of course be mentioned.

To stress our point in #5, the intended audience of this article is regular people that feel it is okay to “pull the trigger” and throw up after eating a large quantity food challenge or any other big meal, strictly to relieve themselves of the lethargic discomfort they are experiencing because they ate too much. These dangers do apply of course to all people that throw up often, but this article is not intended for individuals with body weight or body image issues that throw up after big meals to minimize weight gain or do anything else related to their body and weight. For more information about Bulimia Nervosa, please read the third party article linked in #5. You may also want to check out the article by WebMD about the effects of Bulimia Nervosa by clicking here.

I’d also like to note that this article is mostly intended for people who enjoy attempting large quantity food challenges and eating other big meals. Throwing up on purpose is not covered in much detail in our Recovery From Quantity Food Challenges article, so we explained all of the dangers in further detail above. We cover throwing up in further detail already in our Recovery From Spicy Food Challenges article, so please check that out if you are into attempting spicy challenges and eating really spicy foods. Also keep in mind that if you only plan on attempting one or two food challenges, this article really does not apply to you much either. This article is intended for amateur competitive eaters looking to compete in many future challenges and competitions. Competitive eating and food challenges are meant to be FUN!! We don’t want anybody making poor choices that will lead to them hurting themselves and suffering long term problems that could have easily been prevented.

To find out more information about eating disorders in general, click here for an article by The Eating Disorder Foundation. To seek help, contact the National Eating Disorder Association or The Eating Disorder Foundation.

Thanks for reading the dangers & risks of self induced vomiting and reading FoodChallenges.com!!

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