What Are The Signs Of Overeating?

Determining if you’re overeating might seem straightforward, like counting calories, but it is not that simple. This is because the number of calories you should eat per meal varies from person to person due to different health goals and needs.

It can be challenging to figure out your ideal calorie intake, and calorie counting may not promote a positive relationship with food.

Furthermore, calories alone aren’t a good indicator of mindful eating and recognizing when you’re satisfied, which are crucial aspects of nourishing your body properly and understanding if you’re overeating.

With that in mind, the actual signs of overeating may include:

• Eating beyond the point of being full
• Finding yourself mindlessly eating because you’re bored or distracted
• Experiencing physical symptoms after eating, including nausea, abdominal discomfort, gas, bloating or heartburn
• Eating for reasons other than to fuel your body

Overeating can have both short-term and long-term consequences. In the short term, it can lead to discomfort and weight gain. It might become harder to lose excess weight, and digestive issues may persist over time.

However, there are also less visible long-term health effects. Arrindell mentions that overeating, over weeks, months, or years, can influence cholesterol levels and potentially disrupt blood sugar control, increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease. These hidden impacts might not be immediately apparent but could surface in your blood work.

How To Stop Overeating

If you recognize the signs and are ready to take action, here’s what we recommend to help you avoid overeating:

1. Familiarize yourself with recommended portion sizes

The size of your portions is crucial. To help control your portion sizes, you can make use of nutrition labels and recommended serving sizes from reliable sources.

While these guidelines may not be perfect, they provide a useful starting point for understanding what a reasonable serving looks like, which can be challenging to estimate on your own. Following these recommendations also helps you stay accountable for your food intake.

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Another effective strategy is to eat from smaller plates. Using larger plates can often lead to overeating, especially if you’ve been accustomed to finishing everything on your plate.

Switching to smaller plates can help you maintain more appropriate portion sizes and avoid overindulging, even though you don’t need to finish everything on your plate, according to Arrindell.

2. Include a fibre source with meals and snacks

Fibre is great for making you feel full after a meal. For example, consider a plate of roasted vegetables compared to several pieces of cheese with the same number of calories. The vegetables are likely to make you feel more satisfied because they contain fibre, which contributes to that feeling of fullness, helping prevent overeating.

In contrast, cheese is less filling, meaning you might end up eating more than your body requires before you realize you’re full, as your brain takes longer to recognize your satiety when consuming foods with less fibre.

3. Avoid skipping meals

Intermittent fasting, which involves skipping meals, is a popular diet trend. However, for some individuals, this approach may trigger a pattern of extreme hunger that unintentionally leads to overeating.

Skipping meals can create strong hunger, often leading to episodes of overeating when you eventually eat. Instead, opting for healthy snacks between meals or consuming smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day would help to avoid this feast-or-famine mentality.

4. Know and limit the foods that are easiest to overeat

We often wish for a simple list of foods to avoid entirely, but it is not that straightforward. Food preferences vary from person to person, making it hard to create a universal list.

To gain insight into your own eating habits, keep a food journal. It can help identify which foods are challenging for you.

However, many people tend to overindulge in calorie-dense or processed foods they consider treats. These foods are often high in:

• Salt
• Sugar
• Saturated and trans fats
• Empty calories.

There’s no food you should overeat, as even excessive consumption of healthy options like fibre-rich vegetables can lead to digestive discomfort.

5. Stay hydrated

Sometimes, feelings of thirst can be confused with hunger. When you’re experiencing hunger or craving a snack, try drinking a few sips of water. It can help you figure out if you’re truly hungry or just in need of hydration.

Staying adequately hydrated throughout the day can also help prevent those misleading hunger pangs that are, in fact, caused by thirst.

6. Be mindful about why you’re eating and pay attention to hunger cues

There are many reasons people eat, but the primary one should be to nourish and energize their bodies.

From snacking, because you think you should to following mealtime routines, it is essential not to fall into the habit of mindless eating.

If you’re not paying attention to what you’re eating and why, you’re likely not tuned into your body’s cues for hunger and appetite.

When you’re unaware of when to stop eating, the risk of overeating increases. Being mindful of your meals and food choices is crucial because it helps you connect with your body’s signals and enjoy food as a means of nourishing your body.

7. Slow down

To prevent overeating, it’s vital to stop when you start feeling full. While portion sizing helps, the best approach is to slow down during your meal and pay attention to your body’s signals.

The objective is to allow your stomach and brain time to synchronize. It can take up to 20 minutes for your stomach to signal fullness to your brain.

Many people eat their meals in much less time. If you tend to overeat, consider strategies to slow down your eating process, such as using your non-dominant hand or pausing between bites.

8. Rethink that second serving

Slowing down your eating can also assist you in determining if you genuinely need more food on your plate. While a second helping is fine if you’re still hungry, it is a good idea to wait 5 to 10 minutes before getting it and ensure that the additional serving includes healthier choices like more vegetables.

9. Turn off your TV

To foster awareness of how you feel after eating, it’s beneficial to have mealtime and snack time without distractions. A good starting point is turning off the TV and sitting down at the table.

Eating without diversions helps you reconnect with the purpose of nourishing your body, which is the true essence of food.

10. Give yourself some grace