Why do we want to eat so much?

kailysimpson

I think Louis CK said it best -

His doctor was asking him about his diet.
The dr wanted to know how soon into a meal Louis felt satisfied and stopped eating.
He was trying to understand Louis' eating patterns.

Louis replies:
"...it's just chaos and awfulness..
It's just desperate constant...

'He's like how many meals and how many bowel movements?'

I'm like, I don't know I have no idea
It's just a blur.
I'm just eating and sh*tting all day...

I pack my body to capacity...
Every *kitten* is an emergency...
Does that give you some idea of my eating 'habits?'

I don't stop eating when I'm full.
The meal is not over when I'm full.

The meal is over when I hate myself."

LOL love that guy.

azziria

I completely understand where you're coming from here!

I grew up in a large portion, clean-your-plate house (raised by people who could remember wartime food rationing), I love food, and I've always struggled with portion sizes.

One thing I've realised relatively recently is that I've been eating too fast. Now I'm making a real effort to focus on my food rather than eating while doing something else (such as surfing the MFP message board!). I'm trying to slow down and focus on the food, on how it tastes and smells - trying to eat mindfully, rather than just stuffing it in (not loading my fork with the next mouthful until I've finished the current one is a start!). This makes the portion last longer, and means I really enjoy what I eat even though there's less of it than previously.

HausfrauB

Honestly, I think too many carbohydrates (which become sugars) and sugars are largely to blame. Now that I'm eating 40g net carbs and 8-15 g sugar per day, I find that I am no longer hungry shortly after eating. I really feel satisfied.

Here is an excerpt from an article that really helped me to understand why my appetite has changed so dramatically.

"The first step is to develop an understanding of the biochemical concept of blood sugar control. Research has confirmed many of us simply cannot eat sugars and grains without it leading to out of control eating. You can check this out for yourself. Examine the sensitive nature of your own blood sugar, the highs and lows, the cravings created, and the physical, emotional, and mental response you have to both high and low blood sugars.

What happens to our blood sugar when you eat a high carbohydrate diet? It doesn't matter which processed carbohydrate food you choose, carbohydrates break down into sugar (glucose) in your body and go into your blood. Unbalanced blood sugar levels are a major cause of carbohydrate cravings. Because your blood cannot tolerate too much sugar, your body naturally produces the hormone insulin that takes sugar from the blood and deposits it into the cells. When you eat a high carbohydrate meal, your blood sugar levels rise to a dangerous level. Large doses of insulin rush to the scene and clear out the sugar. As a result of clearing, the opposite state occurs, called low blood sugar. You may be familiar with feeling low blood sugar---being tired irritable even shaky. To bring blood sugar levels back up, your body sends your brain a chemical message saying, "I need sugar, eat sugar." Hence you crave pop, bread, brownies, pasta, or anything with sugar. In effect, carbohydrate cravings are a biochemical response to low blood sugar. Cravings are not a lack of will power! "

Pebble321

It's a really interesting question and I suspect that until each of us can answer that to our own satisfaction, the weight is not going to stay off.

I've been reading the "why are we facing an obesity epidemic" thread with interest, especially the people who give the simplistic answer of "because we eat too much". Of course, that is absolutely true, but it doesn't address your question of WHY we eat so much. And what has changed in order for us to have the means to do this compared to our grandparent's generation.

I've been giving this quite a bit of thought lately, because although I've lost weight and (almost) reached my goal weight, I'm really conscious of the fact that it is so very easy to slip back into my old bad eating habits which are what made me fat in the first place.
I feel that when I know the answer to WHY I eat too much, then I'll be able to stop.

I know that some of the factors are easy access to unhealthy (sugary, low nutrition) food, the desire to be in control of something (especially when other parts of my life feel out of control), the desire for sensory gratification (not just about taste or texture, but also the cool silky slither of M&M's through my fingers....), the falling back on childhood memories of "chocolate as a treat", the bombardment of mixed messages about what is healthy and what is not (everything, apparently at one time or another) and so much more.

OP, good luck in working through this - changing eating habits is easy in the short term and hard in the long term, so I think that you are on the right track in wanting to work out WHY!

meshashesha2012

also our bodies are still designed for our human lives tens of thousands of years ago when things were feast or famine.

our bodies have no evolved to realize that we live in an age where food in plentiful and we dont have to work anywhere near as hard for it as as ancestors did. our ancestors had to hunt and chase and reap and so. most of us and just go to the grocery store or go to a restaurant and WHAMMO instafood.

your body is designed to crave sugary fatty foods because these things are calorie dense.

unfortunately because of this, most of us need to ignore what our bodies are telling us to eat.

NicoleElaine94

My issue is convenient foods. I am usually busy or rushing, so I eat unhealthy fast foods that really don't keep me full, so I am hungry soon after and end up eating another unwise food choice. Portion control for me is also a huge issue, more because I eat a lot of sugary, fatty items that really hold no nutritional value.

ninerbuff

Portion Control. Its a big problem of mine. I just don't understand why I feel the need to eat so much of one thing when I'm eating a meal including multiple items? Is it like a drug or an addiction? I've considered the possibility that I could be addicted to food or types of food but I mentioned it to a psychologist once and it was dismissed with the wave of a hand. Is this how others feel? I'm very interested in hearing others' take on this.

We associate food with happiness. When a baby cries, one of the first things tried is feeding. Did you grow up with a lot of siblings? Maybe you ate a lot because there might not have been seconds to go around. I know I learned to eat fast because in my family we weren't allowed seconds until we ate all our food first and with 2 brothers and my father, it was a race to see who could get in seconds.
Habits take time to break. 21 days is usually the target. You need to train yourself habitually to eat less.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

HausfrauB

Kais79-

I just saw on your profile that you are a newly diagnosed diabetic. Please, please, please read about blood sugar and insulin response. It is so important to understand what your body is doing with the food you feed it. Too few doctors realize how drastic an effect the quality (not just quantity) of our diet has on our bodies.

Here is an article that I found particularly interesting as it relates to problems with the American Diabetes Association diet recommendations:

http://www.menshealth.com/health/cure-diabetes?fullpage=true

Edited because I always miss my grammatical mistakes.

Coco_UK

As a therapist myself I can tell you that you will find people in the profession with all different takes on the concept of addiction, some really don't subscribe to it at all while some are totally into it. Not just addiction to food, but to work, sex, drugs or even alcohol.

Additionally, unless your therapist has experience and knowledge specifically in treating people who are looking at their relationship with food, he might not be suited to help you... But then again, I dont know him or you or the situation.

I think you got plenty of information already on studies and resources which I am sure are helpful, so I wont add more to it. But ultimately, you are certainly not alone in your struggle with food portion! :-)

kais79

Kais79-

I just saw on your profile that you are a newly diagnosed diabetic. Please, please, please read about blood sugar and insulin response. It is so important to understand what your body is doing with the food you feed it. Too few doctors realize how drastic an effect the quality (not just quantity) of our diet has on our bodies.

Here is an article that I found particularly interesting as it relates to problems with the American Diabetes Association diet recommendations:

http://www.menshealth.com/health/cure-diabetes?fullpage=true

Edited because I always miss my grammatical mistakes.

Thank you for your advice! Since I created my profile, which is when I was diagnosed, I have managed to bring my blood sugar under control with diet alone. I think I'm on the right track with that one, but it does kind of suck counting calories AND carbs and now I worry about sodium content even though I refuse to use table salt, there is just SO much in almost every food that isn't hand picked by someone and put into the grocery stores without being processed. Thanks, again!

thebigcb

Tests where carried out on rats, and they easily become addicted to fat and salt and sugar.

Shame we can't get addicted to Carrots or something

HausfrauB

Woo hoo! Bringing your blood sugar under control though diet is such a huge success!

Salt and sugar are used in food manufacturing to produce a strong flavor. Our poor tastebuds are so beat up that, unless we reset them through diet, we can't taste natural sweet or saltiness.

Yeah...logging every little thing one eats is a pain. BUT it will be so worth it in the end, don't you think?

chocolatebug

Drop your psychologist if he dismisses anything you say - it's their job to listen before they analyse! It's my understanding that any given behaviour is reinforced the more times you do it. The neural connections involved with that behaviour get stronger and stronger, which is why I believe you could say it is an addiction, but then eating has to be an addiction or we would all die!

It is also well known that sugar is addictive as it creates and enhances that feel good factor so we just want more. So if you have larger portions, are you trying to make that feel good factor even better?

Breaking the cycle is hard, but you must try. The good news is, once you start cutting out the sugars, they become much less of a draw as the neural connections start to weaken. Try and think of it as a control thing, what you eat is one part of your life you CAN control, but as everyone here knows, it's not that easy!

As a diabetic you know you have to control sugar, carbs and fats so this may make you feel deprived which will make the problem harder. I try and factor in these weaknesses and try and add something to look forward to that isn't that bad. However, it sounds like you may need to just draw the line and try never to step over it. See your dietician so see if they can suggest how to cope with this addiction or feeling of deprivation while taking your diabetes into account.

Don't buy processed foods except in an emergency, they stink! You get so much more when you prepare your own food and it puts you much more in control (important as a diabetic). No hidden carbs, salt or sugars! It's also important to keep moving with diabetes, even if you do just bop around the kitchen to the radio.

My favourite line is, "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips" and really think about what it means. Is a moment of pleasure worth a lifetime of grief? It works sometimes! ;-)

Whoever that psychologist was, I think he cheated at his/her exams and should go and read the research now!

Good luck, sorry to ramble.

_Mimi_

Portion Control. Its a big problem of mine. I just don't understand why I feel the need to eat so much of one thing when I'm eating a meal including multiple items? Is it like a drug or an addiction? I've considered the possibility that I could be addicted to food or types of food but I mentioned it to a psychologist once and it was dismissed with the wave of a hand. Is this how others feel? I'm very interested in hearing others' take on this.

I can...well could, and sadly probably still can, eat men twice my size under the table....I totally agree it's an addiction. I have to say that cutting out artificial sweeteners, and cutting down on all sugar, seems to have REALLY helped!

I had a friend who's a recovering alcoholic. I told him it would be like saying to him, you MUST stop drinking...oh, just one catch...you must drink 3 to 6 times a day....but just a little bit! Same thing with any addict. Food addicts are the only ones who can't just STOP! They must continue to feed their addiction....but learn to control it. Much more difficult, in my opinion. And before anyone jumps all over me, it's the only addiction I can speak to. I, thankfully, have never been addicted to drugs/alcohol. I did stop smoking several years ago, and for me cold turkey was the only way. Same logic. It just seems more difficult to allow yourself a tiny bit of that which your body craves soooooo much!

You CAN beat this! Find out what your trigger foods are, and cut them out completely...at least for a little while. As I said, for me it was soda, sweets, artificial sweetener in my yogurt and coffee. I've also done what my grandmother somehow knew to do decades ahead of her time...I've cut out anything white, and anything made with anything white...that means sugar, flour, whole milk products. I do still enjoy my Greek yogurt, but I buy the 0 fat, and add my own fruit and a little honey.

lacewitch

There is a lot of controversy around the idea of food addictions. Personally, I fall in the 'you can't be addicted to a substance your body requires for survival' camp.

Having said that, the existance of eating disorders is well document and over eating, taken to an extreme, falls in that category. Eating disorders aren't limited to anorexia and bulemia. Disordered eating comes in mutliple varieties.

Another perspective - in an effort to bring in more customers and, therefore, make more profits, the food industry creates ads and runs specials of the 'get more for your money' variety. If you compare the average serving size (meaning, what people actually eat) today to what it was 50 years ago, the difference is astronomical. The reality is that most people have completely lost perspective with serving sizes.

For me, it's taken quite some time to feel satisfied with a reasonable portion. Once you feel, on a gut level, that a reasonable portion size is adequate, you'll stop feeling deprived when you have only that. I believe it's entirely psychological. When your instincts tell you (because they've now been conditioned to tell you) that a serving size hamburger is really a half pound or a serving is really two hamburgers, instead of one, you aren't going to be satisfied with anything less. It doesn't matter that your BODY doesn't need that much. Your MIND thinks it does.

It just takes time to re-wire the thought process. At first, measure everything. After a while, once you've fully internalized what your body ACTUALLY needs, you'll no longer need to measure everything. Be careful though, the advertising that tought you the wrong serving size will still out there.

interesting!
I've been wwatching "the men who made us fat" in the uk whihc xompared 1950's servings to the 2012 serving and it was amazing.
I'm going to try for 1950s servings ( tillmy brain learns) beacuse if i stop exercising i start gainiang massivly ( i have been losing the same 10 lb for a while :laugh: ) so i need to retrain myself to be less greedy!
thanks!

lacewitch

Portion Control. Its a big problem of mine. I just don't understand why I feel the need to eat so much of one thing when I'm eating a meal including multiple items? Is it like a drug or an addiction? I've considered the possibility that I could be addicted to food or types of food but I mentioned it to a psychologist once and it was dismissed with the wave of a hand. Is this how others feel? I'm very interested in hearing others' take on this.

I can...well could, and sadly probably still can, eat men twice my size under the table....I totally agree it's an addiction. I have to say that cutting out artificial sweeteners, and cutting down on all sugar, seems to have REALLY helped!

I had a friend who's a recovering alcoholic. I told him it would be like saying to him, you MUST stop drinking...oh, just one catch...you must drink 3 to 6 times a day....but just a little bit! Same thing with any addict. Food addicts are the only ones who can't just STOP! They must continue to feed their addiction....but learn to control it. Much more difficult, in my opinion. And before anyone jumps all over me, it's the only addiction I can speak to. I, thankfully, have never been addicted to drugs/alcohol. I did stop smoking several years ago, and for me cold turkey was the only way. Same logic. It just seems more difficult to allow yourself a tiny bit of that which your body craves soooooo much!

You CAN beat this! Find out what your trigger foods are, and cut them out completely...at least for a little while. As I said, for me it was soda, sweets, artificial sweetener in my yogurt and coffee. I've also done what my grandmother somehow knew to do decades ahead of her time...I've cut out anything white, and anything made with anything white...that means sugar, flour, whole milk products. I do still enjoy my Greek yogurt, but I buy the 0 fat, and add my own fruit and a little honey.

poor cauliflower!

PercivalHackworth

Portion Control. Its a big problem of mine. I just don't understand why I feel the need to eat so much of one thing when I'm eating a meal including multiple items? Is it like a drug or an addiction? I've considered the possibility that I could be addicted to food or types of food but I mentioned it to a psychologist once and it was dismissed with the wave of a hand. Is this how others feel? I'm very interested in hearing others' take on this.

I think the will to eat so much is habit driven when you overgo the real need.
Getting to know you implies to be able to differentiate both. Control is the thing you'll go against, you don't prevent a dog from bitting, you teach him not to :-)

HausfrauB

interesting!
I've been watching "the men who made us fat" in the uk which compared 1950's servings to the 2012 serving and it was amazing.

Thanks for posting about the documentary. Very interesting.

I just made a delicious grain-free cake (that has the texture of cake). Watching the documentary and realizing that my cake is healthier than a grain bread.

Here's a link to the recipe if anyone's interested: http://comfybelly.com/2011/08/cinnamon-bun-muffins-using-coconut-flour/#.T_1TGsUZZQB