Mind & Body

Common Thoughts That Cause Overeating

July 6, 2009
By J White

When it comes to weight loss, most people believe that it they can find the right diet and exercise plan, losing weight will be easy. This is only partly true. Like with 99.999% of other things in your life, your thoughts will determine how successful you become.

When you do not address how you think about food or overeating, you are headed for disaster. Yes, you may end up losing weight, but without a change in the way you think about eating and food in general, chances are you going to end up just gaining the weight back. This weight cycling or yo-yo dieting continues to be a problem with many dieters, and the reason for this can always be traced back to your thoughts.

Addressing your thoughts about overeating must therefore become a major part of your weight loss plan. This means you need to determine the reasons why you overeat. Of course the simple answer would be to say that you are hungry, but it is more than that. Determining what your reasons are for overeating will give you behaviors to focus on, behaviors, in which, you can learn to change.

The following are some common reasons why people overeat. Once you find yours, you can then learn coping skills to make these behaviors habits of the past.

Common Reasons People Overeat

Emotions

This is probably the number one reason people overeat. Some people eat when they are stressed, happy, sad, or experiencing any other of a host of emotions. Identifying which emotions triggers your need to compulsively overeat will go a lone way in helping you to address you eating problems.

Friends

The people you associate with also is a common reason people overeat. In any group relationship, there is always some basic social pressure to conform to fit in. If overeating is part of that social setting, then you either need to get a new set of friends or develop better self-control.

Never Learned Proper Eating Habits

Eating is more than just placing food on a fork and putting it into your mouth and eating until you cannot move. Unfortunately this is the habit many of us have learned growing up. Eating first and foremost is about nourishing your body, not gorging down whatever is in front of you. Equally important is learning how to do this in moderation.

Environment

Going to a restaurant or other social outings is a license to overindulge for many. Whether it be formal, or going grocery shopping, you need to become aware of how your environment plays a part in why you overeat.

Thinking you are eating less than you really are

A 5 ounce peach has about 55 calories, while 5 ounces of General Tso’s chicken has close to 320 calories. Just because the food portion may seem small does not mean that it doesn’t contain an abundance of calories. As such, learning to recognize the calorie content of food will help you go a long way in making better food choices and what you can actually eat more of.

Associate Certain Behavior or Activities With Eating

If you have to have something to eat every time you sit in front of the television, then you are associating that behavior with eating. To make effective changes in your eating behavior, you need to start recognizing these associations and the impact they are having on your eating habits.

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