How to stop eating/not eat when you are full/shouldn't eat anymore.

Set yourself up to win! Plan snacks so you're never ravenous. Only cook a small portion of a food you're likely to overeat - you might gobble down an extra serving of pasta, but you're less likely to go and cook yourself a whole second helping from scratch. Don't buy family sized chocolate bars or multipacks - when you've got room in your calories for a treat buy a single serving so you can't go past that.

If I'm having a low willpower day, a stick of sugar free gum will keep my mouth busy long enough to ride out that 15 minute period waiting for my brain to realize my stomach is full.

And change the mental record. Instead of 'omg but I just love chocolate I must eat more!' say 'I have the rest of my life ahead of me. I will have many, many chances to eat chocolate because I can fit it into a healthy diet. So I don't need to stuff this in now. There will still be kitkats around next week.'

It takes practice. But it's pretty much an essential thing to learn.

it took a month or two, but it helped me when I learned that I won't die if I eat to take the edge off of hunger and stop there. And longer than that to figure out the difference in sensations between physical and emotional/psychological hunger. I kind of had a false belief that I deserved to eat more. It works for me to eat 5-6 small meals, because I care more about eating often than seeing a whole plate full. Other people need to have that full plate to look at and eat clean at least once a day. You have to figure out what the heart of what motivates your over-eating and work on that. It was hard at first, to turn down 2nds and carefully control snacking, but now it's much easier. But as i said - took me several months to break those habits and feel good about it. Sometimes you just have to power through.

What I've found has changed the way I eat the most (restaurants in particular) is that when they bring you the round of ice water at the beginning of the meal? I drink it. All of it. I often get a refill and drink all of that too. THEN my food comes and I eat it, but I take my time and stop half way to think about whether or not I feel OK to stop. Often times, I DO, because I am one of those people who used to eat when she was thirsty.

the only thing that worked for me was to develop a habit, but to get there, I literally had to remove myself from things that triggered me to eat, or from the kitchen. For a while I literally just would not be home after meals (i would go to the gym, go for a walk, etc) or if I was home, I would stay as occupied as possible and as far away from the kitchen. Over time, that mental "eat eat eat" just goes away, it did take a few months though to make this feel like it's my 'lifestyle' and not just a 'diet' i'm following

ceoverturf wrote: »

DeguelloTex wrote: »

If I've reached my daily calorie limit, I stop eating, It's pretty straightforward.

I protect against not eating to much by weighing what I eat before I eat it. That's also pretty straightforward.

Agreed...having a calorie limit overrides the "this tastes good so I'm just going to eat as much of it as I want."

Not when you're addicted. If that's the case you struggle with that concept.

I never let myself get so hungry that I will lose control of myself. At home I portion out only the food I'm planning to eat and I put the rest away. I pre-package snacks, especially higher calorie snacks like nuts and chocolate, into snack bags. In restaurants, I put away half of the meal before I eat anything. But it comes down to the commitment to log my food and rarely ever go over my allotted calories.

lizzocat wrote: »

the only thing that worked for me was to develop a habit, but to get there, I literally had to remove myself from things that triggered me to eat, or from the kitchen. For a while I literally just would not be home after meals (i would go to the gym, go for a walk, etc) or if I was home, I would stay as occupied as possible and as far away from the kitchen. Over time, that mental "eat eat eat" just goes away, it did take a few months though to make this feel like it's my 'lifestyle' and not just a 'diet' i'm following

I do the same thing. I tend to want to overeat at restaurants because the people around me are as well. When I visually see the amount of food I've eaten to be enough, I excuse myself from the table and walk to the restroom or the other side of the restaurant to break the cycle and when I return I ask for a box and make a statement about how good the food was to reassure myself that I've finished eating. Sometimes I'll even sit on my hands at the table while continuing to talk to a group.
Another trick is eat slowly and chew slowly. It takes 20 to 25 minutes for hormones to tell our brain that we're full.

Sweep4412 -- I often wonder this myself. I wonder how people can just stop eating. When I overeat, I know exactly what I'm doing and that it's bad for me, yet, many times I do it. How can people just put some food on their plate, eat that and be done? I've not always been this way. I used to maintain a nice weight, overweight, but maintained around the same weight without thinking about it. But the last 10ish years has been difficult. During this time, I've lost and gained around 80lbs a few times now. I always regain.

People here will say that I didn't change my lifestyle, you're lazy or just don't eat. For some people it's not that simple. I find losing weight to be "easy", but maintaining my weight loss very difficult. The longest I've maintained my weight loss was three years. I had to think about it every meal. I had to "just stop".

Planning does help. Measuring or learning how to measure by eye. Staying away from trigger foods; don't even have a bite. Decide what you're going to eat, eat that, then remove yourself from the situation. I have to think about doing that every meal. I have to say to myself, "You're done. You've had enough."

I am not a lazy person. I don't do formal "exercise", but I take the kids to the pool, do a few laps and play with the kids. I walk to the park that is 1/2 mile away and play with the kids. I take a walk at lunchtime. I do sit all day at my desk job, so I try do do these things with the kids as often as possible. What it comes down to is that I have trouble "stopping" eating.

I'm not blaming this on anyone but me. I'm not saying there's something in my genetics, I'm not blaming something other than myself.

Sweep4412, as a person who understands, I hate to say it, but I've found no other way to do it rather then just make a decision at every meal (planning helps) and go from there.