Why You're Overeating and 5 Strategies to Help You Stop Today
Prefer to watch? Here’s that video for you!
You’re surrounded by diet rules. You’ve been exposed to thousands, if not millions, of messages about what you “should” and “shouldn’t” be eating.
Food feels confusing and frustrating. And no matter what you do or how hard you try, you find yourself stuck in cycles of overeating and you cannot seem to get out of them.At times you find that you eat beyond comfortable fullness and lose control over how much food you eat. And, you feel like your relationship with food is suffering because of this. You want to stop overeating and you’ve tried following all the advice out there. You’re tired of feeling like there’s something wrong with you and being stuck in cycles of overeating.
What is Overeating?
The word “overeating”, despite being ubiquitous in diet culture, is an arbitrary word. If you look towards the dictionary to define “overeating”, the most extensive definition you’ll find is “the habit of eating too much”. Sounds vague, right? That’s because it is. As a result, the word tends to be fused with guilt and shame about the eating experience specifically when you eat more than you had intended or think you “should” be eating.
The truth is: defining overeating is a very difficult thing to do. There is no way to universally define how much is too much. Each person will have their own definition of what overeating looks like and feels like. This is because everybody’s body is different, and every person eats differently. Add to this that each day your food needs will change and be different. One day you might need to eat a lot of food and other days, less.
Overeating isn’t a moral failure and it doesn’t mean that you’re eating wrong. In fact, the causes of the experience that you’re having with food are likely multifactorial and have nothing to do with how much control or will power you have despite diet culture teaching you that you should be “ in control” of your food intake or else you’re doing something wrong.
What does overeating actually mean?
When most people say they’re overeating, they’re often experiencing food-related behaviors that they perceive as wrong. Food behaviors such as eating larger quantities of food, eating more than the portion size on the package says you’re “supposed” to eat, eating quickly, eating to the point of discomfort, eating more than you usually would, and eating outside of allotted windows when you normally eat are all common culprits when naming a food experience as “overeating”.
The experience of overeating, and how you judge your food intake, also has an emotional component to it. Your perception of how much is “too much” is a big part of labeling an eating experience as overeating which is subjective and is based on a variety of food and body messages you’ve received, and beliefs that you have.
In order to understand more about your experience with overeating, it helps to change the focus from quantity or portion sizes, and shift it towards the way you feel, physically and mentally, during an episode of overeating.Instead of asking yourself, “Am I eating more than I should?” or telling yourself “I’m eating too much”, try asking yourself these questions:
Are you eating past the point of fullness? How does this feel?
Are you eating until you feel uncomfortably full? What’s this like for you?
Are you eating a food that you consider to be “bad” or “unhealthy”? What do you notice?
Are you eating without a sense of control over how much you’re eating? What’s this like for you?
Are you eating to feel a sense of emotional relief or comfort? Are you judging this?
Answering these questions will help you to better describe your experience with overeating which can help to decrease stress, guilt, and discomfort.
Why you’re overeating and triggers for overeating
There are many different reasons why you may be overeating, and two common causes of overeating are emotional triggers and physical triggers.
Some examples of physical triggers that can lead to overeating include:
Restricting certain types of foods or food groups
Restricting your overall energy intake, ie calories
Experience of weight-cycling or yo-yo dieting
Lack of adequate sleep/sleep deprivation
Going long periods of time between meals or snacks
Exercising too much and/or exercising to compensate for the food you’ve eaten
Not eating eating enough carbs, fat, protein or a combo of all three
Your body is incredibly smart, and if you eat too little or not enough, your body will respond with a series of complex reactions and responses to assure that you get enough food the next time you eat. For example, after a period of food restriction, the next time you do eat your body will want to eat more than usual to compensate for that loss and you’ll likely feel out of control with food. Your body thinks, “I didn’t get enough last time, and I may not get more in the future, so this may be my only chance. Better make it count.” This overcompensation is what you may perceive as “overeating”.
It’s important to assess the physical triggers of overeating before moving on to the next common cause of overeating, which are emotionally driven causes/triggers. This is because diet culture likes to blame the individual and your emotions on overeating, but it’s hard to get a true sense as to whether or not an overeating experience is solely emotionally driven if the physical drivers for eating beyond your fullness or overeating are not first addressed.
Some examples of emotional triggers that can lead to overeating include:
Extreme stress related to a job, family issue, or life issue in general
Trauma or history of trauma
The death or illness of a loved one
Poor self-esteem and self-confidence
Feeling as if you are not in control of your life
Experiencing a traumatic event
Intense anger or loneliness
Depression or anxiety
Feelings of boredom or disinterest in life
Suffering from a major loss: job, partner, family member, friend, etc.
Overeating can be your body’s way of responding to an emotional stressor in your life. This is because when you feel these more intense emotions, your nervous system searches for some sort of comfort, relief or distraction because the feelings usually feel like too much and may feel overwhelming. While food may provide a temporary relief, it usually only makes the feelings more intense later on.
This cycle of seeking to feel better by eating food when things in your life feel overwhelming, too much and/ or scary is not your fault. Oftentimes these behaviors develop as kids or young adults when you don’t have other skills, or safe adults in your life, to help you to feel safe, not alone and to help you to regulate your emotions.
What are the dangers of overeating?
There isn’t anything inherently dangerous about overeating, but there are some negative physical and mental impacts that overeating can have on you that should be taken seriously. Be cautious of messaging around body size and weight gain being dangerous as this is often rooted in weight stigma and fat-phobia. Overeating, or being stuck in cycles where you feel out of control with food and are eating to the point of discomfort, can cause and/or lead to:
Acid reflux or GERD
Increased anxiety or depression
Abdominal pain or discomfort
Sluggishness
Constipation or diarrhea
Disrupted hunger regulation
Irregular eating patterns
Decreased self confidence
Poor body image
How can you stop overeating?
Stopping the cycle of overeating begins with a mindful approach to eating. In order to overcome overeating you have to get a better understanding of why you’re overeating in the first place. Unfortunately mindful eating has gotten a bad reputation because diet culture has touted it as being the key to controlling your body size and weight.
Mindful eating as a result is often infused with lots of rules around chewing and eating. The reality is that mindful eating is nothing more than bringing your full attention to the here and now while you're eating, with curiosity and non-judgement. This allows you to take an inventory, one breath at a time, of what you’re experiencing. It’s not about controlling what you’re eating or using mindful eating to eat less.
As you practice mindful eating to get a sense for when, where, how, and why you tend to overeat, you can use these strategies to decrease the frequency of overeating and eventually overtime you may find that you stop overeating all together:
Practice intuitive eating and develop a connection to hunger and fullness.
Learning how to develop an intuitive relationship with food is no easy task especially after years of chronically dieting and restricting your food intake. Please know that it takes time, practice and patience to implement. Through intuitive eating, you will practice allowing yourself to eat when you’re hungry and to eat the foods that you crave when you are craving them. You will also let go of the food restriction that diet-culture has normalized, and allow for freedom and joy with food.
Identify your emotions when you feel the urge to overeat.
If you feel the urge to keep eating or feel as if you are losing control over how much you eat, reflect on your emotions from that day and what you’re feeling in the moment. Use your breath to slow things down. Self-reflection will allow you to identify what’s going on that may be upsetting or difficult. This will give you some choice about what to do next. Remember that identifying your emotions and/or emotional triggers doesn’t mean you need to stop eating your meal or snack.
Develop more coping strategies.
When you experience stressors or emotional discomfort, it’s common to turn toward food for relief and there’s nothing wrong with this. And, if it’s your only coping strategy, you’re going to find yourself in a pickle. In this way, it can be helpful to develop other coping mechanisms that you can use for comfort. Examples include having a creative outlet, such as painting, drawing, journaling, music, dance, and nature; calling a family member, friend or trusted other when you’re feeling strong emotions that feel hard to sit with on your own; going for a gentle walk or doing some gentle yoga; putting away your phone and taking a break from social media; watching a funny show; having cute baby animal videos cued up on youtube; or listening to some music that you enjoy.
Eat enough food at mealtimes to reach fullness and don’t go long periods of time without eating.
A mindset of restriction sets you up for overeating. Give yourself the permission to not only eat, but to eat enough. Make sure your meals have a variety of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates to support your body’s energy needs and be sure when possible to add in food you enjoy. Eating adequate meals and snacks consistently throughout the day will ensure that your body is satisfied and will reduce the desire to overeat.
Stop following wellness influencers who give food advice around overeating.
Unfortunately there are a lot of wellness influencers telling you what you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to food despite having no education in nutrition. These influencers make money by giving you disordered advice in order to benefit a company that’s trying to sell a product. If you’re concerned about overeating, stop following these wellness influencers and turn towards trained nutrition professionals for food-related concerns.
You’ll also love:
Want to stop overeating, but you feel ashamed and don’t know where to start? Our Seattle Dietitians Can Help!
Our seattle-based dietitian nutritionists want to help you heal your relationship with food and assist you in getting out of the cycles of overeating that are causing you stress and anguish. At Bravespace Nutrition, we specialize in eating disorders, disordered eating and body image concerns. Reach out to our health at every size dietitians today to schedule a discovery call !