How to stop overeating

Nowadays, people's eating conditions and living standards have improved a lot. Of course, many people also have the problem of overeating. If you overeat for a long time, it will have a certain impact on your physical health and various physiological functions, and may even lead to more serious problems such as obesity. So, how can we change the problem of overeating? Here are a few methods for you!

1. What to do if you always overeat

First of all, you need to understand why you eat.

Babies eat because they are hungry and stop when they are full. However, parents usually attribute the baby's crying to the fact that he is hungry and needs to eat. So when a child falls, is unhappy, or performs well (such as getting good grades in an exam), parents will generally give the child some delicious snacks as encouragement. However, this eating habit distorts the basic physiological need of "hunger". Food automatically becomes a comfort food, a reward for good performance. Over time, for adults, when they feel stressed, bored, or happy, they will subconsciously want to eat, regardless of whether they are hungry or not. Although it is difficult for us to change this behavior of the body, once you realize it, I believe you will think twice before eating next time.

2. Understand your motivation for overeating

Keep a record of all your unplanned meals for the week and see what you eat in the office, in front of the TV, or while reading magazines. Then divide your records into four columns:

A. Time: record the time when you want to eat most. Many of us find ourselves craving food at certain times of the day. For example, before getting off work, before going to bed, etc.

B. Place and people. Keep track of where and with whom you eat. For example, when you are unhappy, are you in the habit of eating while standing next to the refrigerator? After talking to a friend on the phone, will you naturally pick up a bag of potato chips?

C. Record the food you eat and the amount you eat.

D. In the Emotion column, record your feelings. If you can't describe how you feel, recall what you were thinking or what happened before you rushed to eat, whether it was a phone call or a song on TV that changed your mood, etc., and put all of these in the emotion column. Then use this information to identify the places and situations that trigger your binge eating, so you’ll be prepared the next time you encounter the same situation. Of course, this requires you to analyze specific problems specifically. For example, when you are in the office, the environment is already very tense, but it is easy for you to be exposed to candies from your colleagues. So when you realize this, try not to go to the desk of a colleague that is full of candies. You can draw a candy on a sticker and stick it next to your computer to remind yourself not to eat candies unintentionally.

3. Reorganize your thoughts

What you need to do is pick out the records of the day when you overeat from your diary, and then make a column in the blank space of your diary: write down your thoughts at that time and try to remind yourself to pay attention to the consequences of everything. Over time, your mind will naturally become rational and calm, some negative emotions will decrease, and of course the urge to eat will also decrease.

4. Don’t use food to calm yourself

There are some small activities that can make you feel relaxed and comfortable, and eating is not the only way. For example, polishing your nails, reading a few lines of poetry, etc., as long as you plan to do one or two things every day, you can relieve the overeating caused by stress.