March 8, 2023
Welcome to The Balanced Dietitian Podcast! Hello friends and welcome to the podcast. I am now back in Canada after our trip to Aruba.
Today I wanted to talk about why we overeat. This is a topic that I talk about with my clients and it often brings a lot of discomfort. Why do we continue to eat even when we are full and why do we have a hard time stopping?
[04:23] Overeating is not necessarily the issue
Overeating is not necessarily an issue. It can be the reaction to what we’re doing and the reason why you view it as an issue is that’s how we’re socialized. We are taught and conditioned that eating less is better. So when we have the time of eating more we view it as bad. It’s also an issue to restrict your body.
[06:22] Undereating is a big factor in overeating
Undereating is one of the biggest factors in overeating. Every action has a reaction when you are undereating you are most likely creating the overeating at a different time. Be sure you eat enough. Please nourish your body. Your body deserves that. Your body is expensive to keep alive. Your body needs food. As long as you are continuously under nourishing your body, you are most likely going to continue to overfeed your body at other times.
[07:50] Waiting too long between meals
Maybe you’re waiting way too long between your meals. When we are over-hungry or starving, we feel like we need food now. We may also be in a place where we’re hitting low blood sugar. There’s a lot happening biologically that may push us to eat more. So not only do we need to eat enough, but we also need to eat frequently enough. Frequency is good for our bodies, hormones, and regulation.
[10:18] Emotional Eating
If we’re continuously eating past the point of satiety, then we can start asking ourselves if food is meeting one of our needs. If I’m no longer physically hungry, but I continue to engage in eating, how is food serving me at that time? Is it still bringing me comfort? Is it distracting me from something? Is it increasing my pleasure? Is it helping me numb or is it used as a punishment?
[15:00] Are you actually overeating?
Are we actually overeating? Not to go against everything I just said, because I think all of it is relevant and could happen. But I would also question you and ask you to question yourself if this is actually overeating. We have been taught to undernourish ourselves chronically. We have been taught to try to survive on the lowest amount of feed possible. So maybe a normal amount of food seems a lot to you right now. Maybe the amount of food that you’re eating is not overeating. It’s just what your body needs, you’ve just been taught that you need so little, which is not true.
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Every month, The Balanced Practice offers a low-cost workshop on topics related to eating disorders/disordered eating. Check out the next one coming up!
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