How to stop overeating: 8 tips against nervous hunger
How to stop overeating, especially if out of nervous hunger or boredom? Eating too much food is certainly not healthy: your weight is affected, but above all your health! Binge eating disorder is a problem that shouldn't be overlooked for the sake of your body, and often simply sticking to a super-restrictive diet doesn't help solve it. Here are 8 simple (but very effective) tips on how to stop overeating and be able to defeat binge eating!
1. How to stop overeating? Eating slowly
The first, very important strategy to avoid overeating and indulge in binge eating between meals is to enjoy the main meals slowly. Our tendency at the table, especially if we are hungry or on a diet, is to pounce on food and consume it quickly. In this way, however, the brain will not have time to signal the feeling of satiety to the brain, and we will continue to eat!
The ideal length of each meal should be 30 minutes. If you are a fast eater, it may seem difficult at first to keep to this duration, but it may help to use a timer to monitor the length of the meal. Remember that the stomach will not send a feeling of satiety to the brain for 20 minutes ... your body works like this and must be respected!
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2. Cut down on portions so as not to overeat
It may seem trivial, but how can we stop eating too much if we keep filling our plates as far as possible? Preparing small portions of food is important to avoid overdoing it. The same is true if you are on a diet and want to lose weight: it may be of help to you, much more than skipping a meal (which is absolutely not recommended by any dietician!).
A very simple trick to avoid exceeding the rations is to use smaller plates: it is a very effective "optical illusion, which will make us believe that we have consumed a nice plate full of food, when in reality it will contain half a portion. The color of the dishes can also affect your nervous hunger: prefer a nice blue to a bright red, it will help you feel fuller and not stuff your body with food!
If you are following a specific diet to lose weight, remember to always respect the recommended portions by using a scale so that there is never too much food.
3. Stop eating when you feel satisfied!
Often the origin of a binge eating disorder is nervous hunger: you eat, in short, even if you are not really hungry. Whether it's anxiety or binge eating, the result is the same: your body puts on weight, risking overweight and obesity. So try to learn to listen to your body, what it tells you, what its real needs are!
If you are consuming food and feel full at some point, do not continue to eat just out of boredom or to fill your inner "emptiness". The food in your stomach will begin to make you feel full, bloated: listen to your body and its signals and stop, don't go on with binge eating!
4. Drink lots of water!
Drinking lots of water is a really effective strategy to avoid overeating and losing weight. In fact, water, in addition to being a crazy ally for your health and your beauty, not only hydrates your body, but also fills your stomach, giving you a sense of satiety that will help you stop overeating.
Two liters of water a day are the recommended portion for a healthy diet: always carry a bottle with you to sip during the day, or maybe try flavoring it with a little lemon, cucumber, mint leaves ... it will make hydration is even more pleasant and you will want to drink more even if you are not too used to it.
5. Fill up on vegetables, a healthy food!
For a "healthy diet it is very important to eat lots of vegetables: there is no diet in the world that does not prescribe it!" Vegetables are highly nutritious and provide few calories to your body. If you fill your plate half full with healthy vegetables at every meal, you'll see that you will be able to fill yourself without gaining weight!
Vegetables are also very suitable for snacks between meals: if you get nervous hunger, don't throw yourself into junk food, but munch on some carrots. It can only do you and your diet good!
6. Learn to manage nervous hunger!
Eating too much, as we said, is often due not to a "real" hunger, dictated by the body, but "psychological", a nervous hunger that arises from some problem in our psyche that it would be good to talk to a psychologist. Contacting a therapist, in case of eating disorders, is the only way to really get out of it: only by investigating the psychological reasons that lead us to eat continuously will we finally be able to stop.
Until you start your therapy, you could start keeping a food diary: writing down what you eat daily can help you keep nervous hunger under control. Always take note of the sensations that accompany your hunger pangs, if you feel nervous, if you are eating out of boredom or to reward yourself for something ... it can help you become aware of your problem with food and its psychological origin.
Finally, when you feel the attack of hunger coming, try to distract yourself: go out for a walk, call a friend ... get moving! You may magically realize that hunger has gone away without even touching food!
7. Don't be too hard on yourself!
As simple as our tips on how to stop overeating may seem, they are by no means practical! It will be inevitable, if you choose to follow them, to have relapses or give in to temptations. In these cases, you absolutely must not blame yourself!
Don't be too hard on yourself: the important thing is to put effort into it and be prepared for any (and inevitable) missteps. Take them as an "opportunity to learn something more about yourself: mark in your food diary what you didn't know about resist, how did you feel at that moment, if something particular had just happened, etc ... and talk to your psychologist!
8. Use a few little tricks to stop eating!
Finally, here are some little tricks to stop overeating, take care of your nutrition and safeguard your diet:
- Avoid shopping on an empty stomach: it will lead you to buy unhealthy foods that you don't need ...
- Exercise: in addition to helping you lose weight, sport will lead you to produce more endorphins, which stimulate the sense of satiety!
- Brush your teeth immediately after meals: with the taste of toothpaste in your mouth, it will be more difficult for you to want to throw yourself on chocolate ...
- Avoid eating in front of the TV or a series on Netflix: distracted eating leads to consuming more food, making us less aware of the achieved sense of satiety.
