Kick Overeating to the Curb
We tend to find there’s a lot of shame, judgment and emotion attached to the concept of overeating. So it can be helpful to step back and look at it objectively:
To overeat simple means to eat more food than your body needs, especially so that you feel uncomfortably full. To put it another way, overeating just means to eat past fullness. And here’s a secret: It’s not a sign of weakness or a lack of will power—regardless of what our culture might tell you.
Let’s take a common example:
Do you overeat at night, feel guilty about it, and then restrict yourself during the day to "make up for it?" And do you then repeat this cycle over and over again each day? You are by no means alone. In fact, this might be one of the most common challenges our patients report to us.
And many of those patients have tried to curb their overeating. The trouble is, they tend to start with the behavior—without taking the time to understand what is driving that behavior in the first place.
Why this matters:
Overeating can be driven by a number of factors. Whether it’s your inner emotional struggles; boredom or sadness; or external stressors such as work pressures or finances, there are many triggers that can prompt your desire for a late-night snack. Sometimes it’s simply that you’ve learned to associate snacking with sitting on the couch and watching TV.
So take some time to consider what you are looking for: Are you truly hungry? Or are you just looking for comfort, or excitement, or some other form of emotional experience from food?
Understanding how your habits and thought patterns shape your eating behaviors can help you conquer overeating at night. You can develop a mindset that supports your health goals, and enables you to practice a new healthy habit at night.
Take Action
Examine Your Motivations: If you’re planning to tackle your overeating, start by simply observing when it happens. What are the triggers, how does it make you feel, what factors influence if and when you choose to indulge?
Look at Your Whole Day: Often when we focus on nighttime overeating, we focus only on that specific moment in time. And yet what we do earlier in the day is often what sets us up for challenges (or success!) later on. So if you’re restricting during the day, or not eating balanced meals, you end up hungry or unsatisfied at night. And once you overeat, the shame cycle can lead to more restriction the next day.
Plan Ahead: if you know that overeating at night is a challenge for you, think ahead before that urge hits you. Identify some alternative behaviors that also feel good—like meditation, or a hot bath for example. Or remove some of the triggers that you find too tempting—moving the cookies away from eye level in the pantry, for example.
Be Kind to Yourself: Think about the reasons you want to tackle your overeating? Most likely, it’s because you want to feel better, or improve your health. That’s an act of kindness to your body and your mind - so let’s start as we mean to go on. Don’t beat yourself up when you choose to overeat. And don’t obsess over this so-called ‘bad’ behavior.
Stay Present: Because overeating tends to be an emotionally fraught subject, it can be easy to try to avoid thinking about it. That can lead to eating mindlessly, out of boredom, without even really taking the time to enjoy it.
Here’s what we tell our patients: If you’re going to eat ice cream, then really eat ice cream. Buy the kind you truly want, pay attention as you are eating it, and stop when it no longer feels good. It might sound paradoxical, but really being present if and when you do choose to snack may ultimately be what helps you to get that behavior under control.
What would you like help with?
Weight Loss and Weight Maintenance
Blood Glucose Management, Diabetes, Insulin Resistance, Hypertension, High Cholesterol, Thyroid Disease, Hormonal Health
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), Perimenopause/Menopause
