What do you guys do to stop yourself from eating when you aren't hungry?

ninerbuff wrote: »

Play video games. Hard to eat when hands are being occupied.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

That's exactly what I was going to say.

I can eat all the radioactive meat I want in game

Maybe slightly off topic but I found myself standing at the fridge the other night saying "I want something to eat but I'm not hungry - it's not fair." and very sadly I walked away. Maybe my eating habit is getting better!

I try not to snack as little bites of things activates my hunger although I know it works for other people.

I stick to 3 planned meals and have just told myself "I don't snack and eat between meals". I just don't do it, its not a thing I do - not negotiable. Changing my thinking has really helped me so that I don't need to negotiate and ponder over it - it is just a thing I no longer do, in the same was a vegan will tell you that they do not eat meat - not sometimes, not just when they feel like it - they don't. Ever.

With the option to snack eliminated, I need to deal with occasional hunger and tea, coffee (I don't take sugar so its an almost zero calorie option) and lots of water works for this. I am also less likely to be hungry when I am busy so I do my best to avoid boredom.

I leave my bag in the trunk of my car when I visit places where snacks and treats are easy to buy, as an added strategy. This works very well at the movies. I buy my ticket online and don't take any money or cards with me so that I am unable to buy from the concessions.

I try not to snack during the day as that just seems to trigger a desire to continue snacking. I've found that by increasing protein and fat earlier in the day I don't get hungry as frequently. I also have a huge salad for dinner, sometimes that's all I have for dinner or before I eat the rest of dinner. It's hard to fill up on more calorie dense food when I've had a huge salad. This is useful for pizza night. If left to my own devices on pizza night I could easily eat the entire pizza, but by having salad first I can only eat 2 or 3 slices. I also log all treats in my snack section in my food diary, I can quickly see what I've eaten and it helps to keep me more accountable. I also don't keep snack food (other than fruits and veggies) in the house. If I want something to munch on, I either have to go to the store or make it myself which is convenient because I tend to want to aimlessly eat in the evenings before bed. Odds are I'm not going to want to cook (don't really use the microwave) and I'm also not going to want to change out of pajamas to go to the store.

Being on a calorie allowance of 1200 a day means I don't have the option of eating when I'm not hungry loll

I reason with myself....and think about how many minutes I'd have to exercise to burn the calories off if it puts me over my target....lol.

A cup of hot tea or hot coffee (I drink both unsweetened and without cream/milk...though I might sneak a tsp or 2 of honey in the tea) often does the trick for me for minimal, if any, calories.

If I am at home, I start up a video game, or get on my computer - something to distract me. At work, I focus on straightening my department, and keep my water bottle full of ice water. If I absolutely cannot fight it off, I try to keep healthy/low calorie things around our house - apples, carrots, pickles, etc. That way, if I MUST eat, it's not as big of a blow to my daily calories.

Have the same issue. I'm not sure it's anxiety related? Like if I have something I'm supposed to do but don't want to do it yet or what. Don't know the answer, but thanks for starting this thread!

Here are the things I"ve tried:

• Tea seems to help the most (more than coffee), but doesn't solve it completely or all the time.
• Diet ice tea is my favorite drink and helps a lot with that feeling, but I can easily drink 80oz of it in 10 minutes, so I use that sparingly.
• I've tried cold carbonated water (seltzer water), to help fill up. The problem though is that I'm not hungry, so feeling more full doesn't resolve the issue.
• There are some days when I'm feeling more logical and balanced, and I can simply ignore the feeling knowing that I'm not hungry.
• Other days, when nothing else works, I end up eating a bunch of stuff. If it comes down to eating, I really try to start out with celery sticks and carrots, even though I really want 15 soft-baked Peperidge farm mint-brownie cookies. Then I go to oatmeal/oatbran, 2 servings worth, add peanut butter powder, cinnamon, and use calorie free sweetener or low free syrup. That seems to help, with the heaviness of the oatmeal and the sugary taste. That's still about 300-500 calories, but like I said, I can most definitely eat 5x that in other snacks.

Good luck, and let me know what you find that works for you so I can try it out too.

Soopatt wrote: »

I try not to snack as little bites of things activates my hunger although I know it works for other people.

I stick to 3 planned meals and have just told myself "I don't snack and eat between meals". I just don't do it, its not a thing I do - not negotiable. Changing my thinking has really helped me so that I don't need to negotiate and ponder over it - it is just a thing I no longer do, in the same was a vegan will tell you that they do not eat meat - not sometimes, not just when they feel like it - they don't. Ever.

With the option to snack eliminated, I need to deal with occasional hunger and tea, coffee (I don't take sugar so its an almost zero calorie option) and lots of water works for this. I am also less likely to be hungry when I am busy so I do my best to avoid boredom.

Yes, this is exactly what worked for me. Whenever I fall back into the habit of snacking (like when I did a week long bike trip where I was eating all the time, as I needed the calories) I find I have to train myself again to get back into my normal schedule, but it only takes a few days -- probably a week or so the first time I did it.

When I first started this I let myself eat raw veggies when I felt the urge to snack, but nothing else, and I realized I wasn't really hungry within a few days and stopped feeling that urge to eat. Then I started just walking around a little or getting coffee (black) or water or writing a little bit about why I wanted to eat (or even just planning a dinner based on what tastes I thought I wanted).

For me it was really about habit, so changing that so I don't think about eating outside of meals was the key.

Eat. But, I choose something with high protein. If that doesn't work, I try to change my environment by going for a walk or drive.