5 Tips to Stop Mindless Eating
5 Tips to Stop Mindless Eating
Many of my clients feel like they’re eating too much, feel physically uncomfortable, and want to lose weight. The first thing they do is start thinking about what foods they can restrict (No more sugar or bread!) or start Googling for the latest diet trend.
A desire to stop overeating and mindless grazing when NOT physically hungry makes perfect sense. Eating or drinking things to the point of excess and feeling physically bloated and sluggish isn’t something most of us enjoy. However, we don’t need to go to extremes and cut out entire food groups, then feel deprived, thus INCREASING cravings for the very foods we restrict.
Below are the top 5 questions I ask my clients to get to the bottom of mindless eating. You may be surprised to find that the slightest tweak in your eating habits can have a positive impact on how you feel physically and mentally.
#1: Are you eating ENOUGH?!?
Are you skipping breakfast, eating a small lunch with no carbs, then getting HANGRY around the time you start prepping dinner? Then you dive into your kids’ snacks while putting dinner together. Dinner rolls around and you’re not starving anymore (because…. Goldfish and Pirate’s Booty) but you eat anyway. Now you feel bloated, sluggish, overly full.
#2: Are voices in your head telling you certain foods are BAD and you SHOULD NOT eat them?
You know the scenario. You’re out to lunch with co-workers or friends. You see a fried chicken sandwich with chipotle mayo on a brioche roll on the menu. It sounds soooo good but sirens go off in your head. How could you possibly eat that? It’s fried. You will most likely eat the entire thing, plus the fries on the side, even if you get full halfway through. You opt for a salad with grilled chicken, no cheese, vinegar and olive oil. You walk away feeling fed, maybe still a bit hungry, and still thinking about the fried chicken sandwich that you didn’t allow yourself to eat.
#3: Do you recognize true physical hunger from emotional hunger?
When you feel like you’re mindlessly eating, are you actually physically hungry? If not, do you know why you’re eating? Is the food filling an emotional void rather than helping out a grumbling stomach? Are you bored? Lonely? Upset? Stressed? Anxious? These emotions are worth exploring. When you feel the emotion coming on, take a pause so that you don’t react without thinking and go for food. Not all emotional eating is “bad” but when it’s happening regularly and makes you feel physically sluggish, this is a habit we can work to change. Part of this work means diving into your history with food and figuring out when and why this emotional eating began.
#4: Are you looking for stimulation?
In #3 I wrote about boredom as a form of emotional eating. Eating for stimulation can mean eating because you’re bored but it can also mean your brain needs stimulation beyond typical boredom. This happens often in people with ADHD. Dopamine levels can be low and we’re looking for a way to stimulate our brain. We can seek out stimulation in a variety of ways, food being one of them. If you have an ADHD diagnosis and notice a lot of mindless eating for stimulation, this is definitely something to discuss with a registered dietitian or therapist who understands the ADHD brain.
#5: Are the foods you’re eating SATISFYING?
There is a difference between being full and being satisfied. We can eat something we didn’t really enjoy, feel full, but feel less than satisfied. A cold yogurt for breakfast and cold salad for lunch may not be what our body wants in the middle of winter. Maybe you’re more in the mood for warm oatmeal and a bowl of chili for lunch. If we don’t listen to what our body is craving in terms of food texture, temperature, or how we feel after eating it, we may start grazing around for snacks to try and fill that missing satisfaction factor.
If you notice your eating most days seems mindless, unplanned, and not linked to true physical hunger, go through this list and see if you relate to any or all five of these scenarios. If you can relate, take things a step further and figure out how to address the sitatuion vs run away from it and start restricting food.
Reading this post only scratches the surface. It can takes weeks or months of observing your eating behaviors, listening to your hunger and fullness signals to get a handle on mindless eating. If you’re struggling, help from a registered dietitian, especially one trained as a certified intuitive eating counselor, can definitely help!
Do you live in NY state and want to work with me? I offer in-person and virtual sessions. Click here to send me more details and I’ll be in touch!
If you live outside of NY and are looking for an RD who is also trained in intuitive eating, you can find an intuitive eating counselor in your area by clicking here.