5 Tips To Prevent Overeating
We’re going into the Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada and for many, it’s super exciting because that means food, family, relaxation (more sleep!) and fun! But for others, it can bring about a lot of anxiety with the fear of overdoing it and eating too much
.I’m a big believer that food is meant to be enjoyed, make you feel good and not come with an extra helping of stress and so I’ve put together 5 of my top tips to help prevent overeating over the holidays and help you go into it with great joy and anticipation!
5 Simple Tips To Prevent Overeating
1. Put away the technology
Okay, so I highly doubt you are going to be scrolling through your Instagram feed during your Thanksgiving dinner, but I do feel this tip is still worth noting, whether you are at the dinner table or enjoying some leftover pumpkin pie in front of the TV. Perhaps you are reading this post outside of the holidays and happen to be a culprit of scrolling through your Instagram feed during breakfast. No shame – I've been there!
It’s super important to be present while you are eating and paying attention to the food in front of you rather than eating while on our phone, our laptop or while watching TV.
There are so many physiological processes that occur during the cephalic phase of digestion (aka the time you spend seeing, touching, smelling and engaging with your food) that won’t occur if you are distracted while eating. That means you may not produce the necessary enzymes needed to help break down food, blood flow may not be present in the abdomen to help you absorb nutrients and your hunger hormones may not be fully engaged.
All of these processes are crucial, not only for digestion but to prevent overheating. You may have experienced this if you have ever finished eating something while being distracted by something else and went on to have a snack shortly after. That probably means you weren’t fully engaged while eating and your bodily processes did not get the signals they need to notify the brain that it’s full.
Moral of the story – keep the distractions away for mealtime (which is usually only 10 minutes). You can do it!
2. Eat the foods you enjoy
You probably don’t hear this kind of advice from a nutritionist very often, but given that I am a pro-intuitive eating nutritionist and disordered eating coach, I truly believe that there is room for all foods in our diet and that we should eat foods we actually enjoy – like pumpkin pie!
What happens when we eat foods we genuinely want is that we feel more satisfied as a result and so you may find that you don’t need as much. Whereas, if you say “I can’t have the pumpkin pie” and go on to eat other foods to try and make up for it, you will likely end up again back at the pumpkin pie because that’s what you genuinely wanted to begin with. It makes much more sense to simply honour your craving to begin with and have the pumpkin pie if that’s truly what you want and you’ll be surprised to see how it can help to alleviate cravings.
Now does that mean I’m against healthy versions of pumpkin pie? Of course not! In fact, I personally feel better when I have healthier versions of my favourite foods, especially desserts, because you can make use of natural sweeteners and nuts and seeds in the recipe to make it more blood sugar-balancing which will help to stave off an energy spike and crash. With that said, if I genuinely just want the “real thing”, I will allow myself to have it because I know when I do give myself that permission, I feel more satisfied as a result.
3. Chew your food (25 times!)
Don’t freak out if you aren’t currently chewing your food 25 times until it’s the equivalent of pure mushy baby food. However, consider this a gentle reminder to get your chewing on!
Many people aren’t chewing their food enough when it can be such a great way to slow down the eating process (and thus, allow us to check in with our hunger/fullness levels and prevent overeating) while supporting digestion since, despite popular belief, digestion begins in the mouth – not the stomach!
I can think back to last Thanksgiving and even after the elaborate preparation that went into the making of our Thanksgiving dinner, most people at the table were done eating after 5-10 minutes! I’m not saying that you need to take an hour to eat your food, but my point is to slow down, chew your food, immerse yourself in the beautiful flavours and textures and check in with your hunger/fullness levels throughout. Doing so can be a great tool to help prevent overeating and feeling that “too full” feeling.
4. Rate your hunger from 1-10
This is a tool I use with my emotional and disordered eating clients a lot. What I’ve found is that many people know what uncomfortable fullness feels like, but they don’t know what comfortable fullness feels like so they can stop eating when they get there.
Using a hunger scale can be helpful to check in with how you’re feeling throughout meal time. The scale goes from 0-10; 10 being, it feels like you just went to a buffet and over did yourself whereas 0-1 would be like "hangry" to the max! We want to aim to eat when we're around a 3-4 and stop eating when we're around 5-7.
Like everything I recommend, take it with an element of flexibility. Don't stress about it. There are going to be times where you do happen to overeat and bring yourself to that point of a 9 or 10. Instead of beating yourself up and judging yourself, approach how you're feeling with curiosity; what just happened? why did it happen? could something have triggered it today or yesterday? how am I feeling emotionally? are my needs being met? There are so many factors that play into this that go far beyond simply self-control (which I personally don't believe in because you can only control so much before your physiology kicks in and takes over). More on that another time!
5. Resign from the "Clean Your Plate" club
Many people use an empty plate as a cue for when they're done eating, when in fact, they might have been full half way through their plate or 3/4 through their plate. To prevent this from happening, use the hunger scale and all of the other tips I shared above to check in with yourself throughout meal time and see how you're feeling; chew your food, put down your fork, put away distractions, look down at your plate and focus on the food in front of you. When you do this, you will be able to check in with your hunger levels throughout your meal and determine when you've had enough.
And look, I get it. Sometimes it's a huge bummer to walk away from such a yummy meal, especially when you don't have it often. But you will be way better off to package up the leftovers and save it for later. The discomfort from feeling to full and the guilt and shame that comes with it is never worth it. Respect your body by listening to it!
If you want a summary of these points, I shared these tips in my recent segment on CHCH Morning Live in preparation for the Thanksgiving weekend! Watch the segment here or by clicking the image below.
With that said, Happy Thanksgiving to you, my Canadian friends! I am SO grateful for you and thankful that you read my posts. I hope you've found these tips helpful and please do ENJOY this weekend :)