How to stop over eating.

whpd700516004

Since I have a passion to psychology I have came to realize that over eating is a way to find pleasure and joy because usually we over eat when we are depressed or bored or stressed or having a stressful emotions so I cane up with a stratigy on how to stop or pretty much limte over eating
1- since eating tasty food make our brains sort the pleasure hormon dopamine therefore every time we feel down our brains ask for tasty food to get that hormon we can hack our brains by socializing with other people. Talking to people could give you a dopamine rush therefore your brain won't ask for food. An exaple to this is when someone is in love if you have ever fallen in love with someone you will realize that you don't eat as much why because when the brain experience love it sorts a very large amounfs of dopamine and oxytocin and those to hrmons are considered the pleasure hormones.
2- also I have another startgy when you are about to eat and you have a full meal in the refrigerator split it in half and warm the first half and eat it by the time you finish earing it you will wait for around 5 to 10 mins to warm the 2nd half by then you will feel very full I don't know why this happen but I sure most of you have experienced this before.

So those are my stratgies if you have some share them with me in a comment.

midpath

As an ex overeater and a person with aspergers, neither of these wouldve helped me. Social interaction wouldve driven me to not eat at all because of anxiety but as soon as I got home, binging would commence. And you can't tell an overeater to just eat half their plate. They'd be back in that kitchen so fast to eat away the rest. Probably still cold. There's so much misunderstood about overeating and a lot of people think it stems from emotions, which some cases do surely, but also many health issues can cause you unnecessary hunger like insulin resistance and its estimated that a lot of people have that and they don't even know it. Also people could have hormone imbalances, or have terrible dietary choices. Overeating has been proven to be caused by a disruption in grehlin and certain foods have been proven to disrupt grehlin.

This is me personally so it won't work for everyone else, but I stopped eating added sugars for about a month and slowly added SOME but not all back in over a few months and I haven't overate since then. I didn't use to even know what hungry and full felt like but now I do and I am able to follow hunger cues to the point where sometimes I have to force myself to eat something at the end of the day so my metabolism doesn't plummit from lack of calories. There are also days where I eat 500 or so calories above my limit but I've noticed it really balances itself out at the end of the week because I'm actually following hunger instead of numbers or irrational appetite.

I'm happy your strategies work for you though. We all need to find things that work for us and if you've found success and peace with your methods that's freaking awesome!

Cupcaker35

Great advice! I so needed to see this post. I was contemplatinng having an extra serving of a sugary snack and calculating how much exercise it would take to balance it. I decided to drink an extra bottle of water and realized that I should stop eatting on the go and/or while watching television and focus on enjoying my food and my body.

SergeantSausage

We usually overeat because food tastes farking good, right?

Why make it out to be anything more? No latent, secret, underlying psychological issues.

It tastes good and your average peeps have little to no self control.

I watched a Scooby video the other day where he basically said (paraphrased): " You're fat because your food tastes too darned good. Waaaaay too gooood..."

I agree 100%.

kthompson601

SergeantSausage wrote: »

We usually overeat because food tastes farking good, right?

Why make it out to be anything more? No latent, secret, underlying psychological issues.

Hmmm, I would disagree, but we might be viewing "overeating" in two different ways. If you mean the way of, "Wow, this stuffing at Thanksgiving is absolutely amazing," and then you eat an extra helping, then sure, you've overeaten due to taste.

But some people, myself included, find us rushing to food even when we just minutes ago had no urge of hunger to eat, eat, eat. Usually it's in response to some sort of emotional trigger, at least for me it is. For example, a few weeks ago I got some devastating news about my aunt's health. And even though I was not hungry, even though I had just eaten an hour ago and was sated, all I could think about was going to the nearest takeout place and getting a pizza with all the trimmings. I experienced an intense desire to stuff my face, not because pizza tastes good or because there was a physical hunger behind it. It was a purely psychological response. Another example: I unexpectedly lost my job back in January. Despite not being hungry, I bought a family size box of Cheez-its and ate the whole thing in my car while crying. Trust me, I wasn't doing it because Cheez-its taste good (though I think they do). It was an out of control emotional response triggered by a stressful event.

So I would say, yes, sometimes overeating is spurred on because food is delicious. But sometimes you get this intense desire to eat because of an emotional trigger, not because food tastes good.

SherryTeach

What helped me was to portion out food ahead of time and only have out what I plan to eat and have already logged. Especially if the rest of the food is frozen solid or put in a very inconvenient place, I will think twice about that second piece of cheesecake or whatever. I think enjoy all the food that is there on my plate, knowing that I will still get to eat more of it on another day. If I know it's there, I don't feel compelled to eat it. (Unlike the box of donuts in the faculty room where if I don't take one (or 2 or 3) now, they will be gone. I also practice hobbies that also give me that dopamine rush. Knitting, reading, drawing, training my dog. . . all pleasurable without food involved.

Cortneyrenee04

I've finally learned the difference between "I want to eat" and "I'm hungry". When I just want something I go for a run and it takes my mind off of food (for a while)!

yopeeps025

SergeantSausage wrote: »

We usually overeat because food tastes farking good, right?

Why make it out to be anything more? No latent, secret, underlying psychological issues.

It tastes good and your average peeps have little to no self control.

I watched a Scooby video the other day where he basically said (paraphrased): " You're fat because your food tastes too darned good. Waaaaay too gooood..."

I agree 100%.

I would have to disagree. Foods can release some dopamine in the brain because it is so good.

Actually IDK anymore. Look on google and found the dopamine diet by Dr dumbass I mean Dr. Oz.

tanyajensen75

I personally love when my food tastes good, but I also find myself going to the fridge a lot, whether I am bored, stressed or even tired. I try and ask myself, "Is this going to help me reach my goal?" when I feel the urge to overeat cookies or pasta. Sometimes it helps....

dubird

For me, overeating was from an unconscious snacking habit. I'd be watching tv or on the computer, and start munching, next thing I know it's two hours later and I've eaten most of a bag of chips without realizing it. Most of the time without actually being hungry. Because of this, I had gotten used to eating larger meals, therefore, when I was eating actual meals, I was eating too much. And since starting MFP, I've become a lot more aware of quantity of food, and have slowly trained my body to accept smaller meals and to greatly curb my snacking, which means I eat less overall.

I personally don't really turn to food for emotional reasons, never did. I like food, and I consider a nice steak dinner a good reward for some things, but i'm not a comfort eater. When I feel bad, either about myself or something else, I'll go into my office, shut the door, and play a video game or read for escapism. I suspect that's the same kind of thing for emotional eaters. Well, not so much 'escapism', but a way to distract themselves with something they love as a way to deal with emotional pain.