The psychology of needing to eat until stuffed - a discussion

ahoy_m8

I also have appreciated all the thoughtful comments on this thread. Reflecting over the past few days, I've realized that, for me, overeating happens in 3 contexts:

1) accidental - e.g. we recently went to an all inclusive vacation place where portions were small (presumably to reduce waste and let guests try lots of things). I was mindful of portions and pretty reasonable all week. There were two dinners, however, where I thought my portions were ok but when I got up from the table, it was, "Opps, I misjudged and ended up over-full." This almost never happens at home where I'm weighing portions.
2) planned - e.g. banking calories for a celebration/holiday. It's overeating but I planned/compensated for it.
3) unplanned, willful, out of control - that IDGAF binge way past the point of satiety. I've been trying to figure out why I do this (and the situational "triggers") for a long time. Sometimes I have an appealing eating plan where adherence feels easy. And sometimes I have an equally appealing eating plan and I just go off the rails.

I'm a numbers person and have tracked CICO for several years (maintained my weight several decades). I know how many calories I need. I always COULD eat/drink more and usually want more, like just about every day I would like more. Most of the time I decide to have "enough" even though I would like more. I think it is when my cognitive reserves are low for whatever reason, and consequently my self control/discipline is depleted, that I willfully decide to consume more than I need. I honestly have failed to correlate it to any specific situation. Alcohol certainly disinhibits eating more, but that's usually 200-300 calories for me vs. a full on can't-get-enough binge. I'm a work in progress.

MHarper522

I remember reading and seeing a report showing how people do not feel satiety the same way, even as children. Some people will eat as long as food is there and some will only eat when hungry, even if offered with food. It's chemical reactions and not more vs lack of will power: you don't need will power when you're not even tempted (though some people are tempted and resist, which requires will power, but that's learned)

Add emotions, possibly trauma, learned behavior and other factors to not really feeling satiety, and the grind of daily life and some people will just eat until stuffed.

I'm the "not really feeling satiety" type. I will eat, graze even when no actively hungry. I was an athlete and my body got used to food being consumed continuously. A lot of my process has been learning where my satiety lies.

AnnPT77

Willpower. desire, appetite, habit, and psychological factors generally . . . are biochemistry, when you take it down to a low enough level of abstraction; and probably are partly influenced by genetics, even though we talk about them as if they were entirely separate parallel things.

No, I don't have a cite. No, I don't think we lack free will (or an analog that's close enough for practical purposes).

Yeah, this is tangent to the main point of the thread . . . but I think it's relevant to thinking clearly about some of our posts.

nowine4me

kommodevaran wrote: »

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

The reality of having an abundance of cheap food around us everywhere we go is still a new thing in human history. Eating 'all of it' was a good strategy when 'it' was in short supply. Now, for most of the world, there is an abundance of food available. All of us have to learn to self-regulate our consumption. Some of us do that better and earlier in life than others.

Is this a psychological issue? I don't think so. Mental, yes, because we have to make the executive decision to stop while food remains available. There are psychological issues that can manifest in an individual's taking or refusing food. I'm not addressing those issues. I'm simply pointing out that the problem of overeating to the point of discomfort is probably a human feature that is controllable.

I think this is important, it's important that we don't just assume we're all nut cases, but see how forces in our society work and the conflicts that come up when different parties have different interests. A human doesn't have many needs, but we can be convinced that our needs and wants are endless. I have been working for years with adjusting my thoughts and feelings around proper portions - the portioning in itself is easy, but internalizing it, this really is enough, is hard. Lately I have adjusted my shopping routines too, to stop filling my house with unnecessary food, but I had failed to adjust my thoughts and feelings around buying (and not buying) stuff. I have to do that now.

There is a psychologist, Dr. Doug Lisle, that does a lot of work in this area. In short, humans are programmed to cram when food is available to compensate for times of shortage. Today, there is no shortage. We still cram. But rather than cramming a wild goat leg and potatoes, we cram quarter pounders with cheese.

I love to eat until I’m really full, so I eat fruits and vegetables. Lots and lots of them.

Evamutt

cmriverside wrote: »

I have the same problem with peanut butter, and I've read the same thing over and over on this site - so it is something about peanut butter.

I use p butter powder, but I feel the same about having sausage in the house or hard salami, so I switched to turkey sausage, I still eat the whole pack, can't stop thinking about it but it's a lot less calories

Evamutt

I very rarely feel truly full. when I was a teen, I ate very large amounts of food, though I was very thin & didn't start gaining till my first pregnancy. I would eat 20 chicken drumsticks at a time, I ate at Fat Ed's in SF on my 21st Birthday & if you could eat their steak, it was free. It was free for me. I would take meat out of my dad's lunch etc. I couldn't get enough food. I barely ate till I was 10 & was very sickly

teranga79

I very rarely feel full either. I've been really struggling with binges lately (am onto day 6 without a binge so fingers crossed this time!). I can easily eat enough food for 3 or 4 people and still not feel full. Most of last week I was eating good sized, healthy meals and still managing to put away 2 or 3 full-size packets of biscuits, entire cakes, family-sized bars of chocolate.... every day! I just really, really like eating. I like the taste of the food and I like the feeling of physically putting the food in my mouth. I think I'm always going to struggle with this.

bernadettenz

cmriverside wrote: »

THEN (this is important for me) I look at a clock or set a timer. I have just eaten what I know intellectually to be my "enough" amount of food, so now I wait for my brain to get the signal from my stomach/gut/wherever the message originates. I know it's going to take 20 minutes for that to signal, "FULL." So I make sure to not eat anything in the 20 minute window. I'm almost always okay and full-ish at that 20 minutes. During the 20 minutes I often want to eat more.

Fantastic! This is totally a solution for me to try!!
I often eat my full dinner and then eat something else straight away just because it is yummy and it's there.
I think setting a timer for 20 minutes will get me out of the dining room and doing something else and potentially not at all likely to interrupt myself to make more food.

Evamutt

I can't eat like that any more, good thing but I do have a larger brunch *& dinner, which helps with having a few lite snacks in between. After I eat my meal I tell myself to wait 20 min & if I want more I'll have some then. So far, I never want more after 20min plus water helps a lot. There's a volume eaters thread on here that gave me good ideas